Kate McClymont testifies in Alan Jones trial
Warning: Graphic content
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of former 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones’ indecent assault and sexual touching trial in the historic Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney.
Today, The Sydney Morning Herald’s chief investigative reporter, Kate McClymont, has been called to give evidence by the Crown.
Jones, 85, is standing trial on 19 counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching without consent against five male complainants between 2003 and 2020. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denies the alleged physical acts occurred.
All five complainants have now given evidence in court. The trial has heard McClymont spoke to three of the men when she was investigating allegations against the broadcaster, which culminated in a series of reports.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
Court break
The court is taking a break until 3.10pm.
McClymont asked about rivalry between Jones and Hadley
Kate McClymont is being asked if she was aware that former 2GB heavyweight Ray Hadley had “animus” towards Alan Jones in 2019.
“Possibly, but it wasn’t something that weighed on my mind,” McClymont said.
“You must have known in 2019 that Ray Hadley had tried to unseat Jones from breakfast [radio] in that very year,” Jones’ barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC, said.
“Maybe. It’s not something that I recall one way or another, really,” McClymont said.
The race that stops a trial
NSW Local Court Judge Glenn Walsh offered to pause evidence for Jones to view the Melbourne Cup at 3pm, an indulgence gratefully accepted by Jones’s barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC.
Walsh suggested before Kate McClymont was called back to the box that there was a “particular race” the former 2GB broadcaster might be interested in at 3pm, while Jones chuckled in the front row.
It is not uncommon for breaks to be offered for various reasons, including to let a witness stretch their legs during the afternoon’s evidence.
Bashir admitted some surprise that the race only went for “three minutes and 17 seconds”, as the judge confidently asserted.
Bettina Arndt’s appearance in public gallery
Author and commentator Bettina Arndt briefly attended the trial for the first time as Kate McClymont started giving evidence, and chose a seat in the front row of the court.
Arndt is a former sex therapist who also wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age about social issues during the 1980s, before becoming a men’s rights activist in the 1990s.
For a time, she was seated near members of Nine’s legal team, who were supporting McClymont, along with Herald editor Jordan Baker and deputy editor Nick Ralston.
The last high-profile trial involving media personalities and sexual assault allegations attended by Arndt was former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten and its former star Lisa Wilkinson.
Arndt did not re-appear in court after the morning break, however, and the court has slightly emptied.
What we know so far
Kate McClymont, chief investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald, has been giving evidence in Alan Jones’ indecent assault and sexual touching trial in the NSW Local Court since 10am.
If you are just joining us now, here’s a summary of her evidence so far.
- McClymont agreed that she spoke to three of the five complainants in this case while she was researching allegations against Alan Jones and writing a series of articles, the first of which was published in December 2023. At that time, the former 2GB broadcaster had not been charged with any offences.
- She spoke to “C” in September 2023; “A” and his mother in December 2023; and “H” in January 2024. None of the three complainants received benefits from the masthead for their information, she told the court.
- McClymont gave a statement to police in June 2024 and Jones was charged in November that year with the offences at the centre of this trial.
- Jones’ barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC, suggested newspapers have a “profit motive” and stories “have to sell papers”; McClymont said with a small laugh that this was “not my problem” and not part of her role. To the suggestion that Jones is a divisive figure, she replied: “If you say so”.
- McClymont denied speaking to former 2GB host Ray Hadley about Jones in October 2019, saying she believed author and Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons spoke to Hadley then.
- The court heard that after FitzSimons emailed her notes of a conversation with the complainant now known as “C”, she emailed a colleague: “We have another one.”
- The journalist confirmed she interviewed “C” years later in September 2023 and, with his consent, she took handwritten notes and recorded the audio via an AI transcription service.
- The court was played a recording of McClymont’s interview with “C” about an allegation that Jones touched him in a car. She disagreed with Bashir that “the way [one quote] is set out in the article is not the way it transpired in the interview”.
- McClymont agreed that she used the expression “go the grope” when she interviewed “C” about his allegations and that “C” repeated it in agreement. The words “he’d go the grope” ran prominently in her story, the court heard.
Lunch break
The court is taking a break for lunch. The hearing will resume at 2pm.
Shortly before the break, Kate McClymont told the court that she showed complainant “C” his quotes “and he made some minor amendments” before the story ran in December 2023.
Complainant was asked if Jones would ‘go the grope’
The court is played another snippet from Kate McClymont’s interview with “C” in 2023.
The complainant said that when Jones touched him on his penis “it was never skin on skin” but over his clothing.
“He would go the grope?” McClymont said in the interview.
“He would go the grope,” the complainant replied.
McClymont agrees that these words ran prominently in her article reporting on the complainant’s allegations. She agrees the term groping was introduced by her.
‘You’re driving, so you’re trapped?’
“C” made an allegation about Jones touching him in the car while he was driving the then-broadcaster, the court has heard.
McClymont is played the recording of her interview with “C”, in which he told her about this allegation and said he would “just try and wriggle out”.
She said to him: “You’re driving, so you’re trapped?”
The complainant agreed with that characterisation: “Absolutely trapped.”
McClymont denies a suggestion by Gabrielle Bashir, SC, that she knew that this would be a key quote for her article.
McClymont’s interview with complainant ‘C’
Kate McClymont agrees that she organised to interview complainant “C” on September 21, 2023, and she made handwritten notes and recorded the audio of the conversation.
“Well, it’s actually a transcription service,” McClymont says of the recording. “The primary function is a transcription service run by AI. It has to [record it] in order to transcribe it.”
She agrees “C” gave her consent to do this, and that she spoke to “C” for over an hour.
FitzSimons’ ‘match report’ email
Kate McClymont is being taken to phone records showing her contact with author and Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons, including on October 17, 2019.
In an email at 6.40pm that day with the subject line “Match report”, FitzSimons sent McClymont and another colleague summarising his recent conversations about allegations against Jones.
One man had been friendly and said he “finished with Jones on good terms”, the email said.
Gabrielle Bashir, SC, acting for Jones, put to McClymont that this was of no interest to her.
“Not of no interest,” McClymont says. “It did not advance our story.”
FitzSimons and McClymont spoke again on October 18, according to phone records.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
