Alan Jones is rocked by a death close to home – as explosive details of sexual abuse allegations against him are revealed for the first time
EXCLUSIVE
Alan Jones was privately mourning the loss of his brother Bob when he was charged with indecently assaulting young men he encountered during his decades-long radio career.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal Jones had been quietly caring for his ailing older brother, who died aged 85 on September 8, for much of the past year.
Jones was arrested at his Circular Quay apartment at 7.45am on November 18 and taken to a Sydney police station where he was charged with 26 offences involving nine alleged victims.
The 83-year-old is accused of assaulting the complainants at his harbourside apartment, his former homes at Newtown and Fitzroy Falls in the Southern Highlands, and at other places in Sydney.
The alleged offences occurred between June 2001 and December 2019 and include accusations Jones fondled penises, squeezed bottoms, and yanked one man’s scrotum.
Jones faces 11 counts of aggravated indecent assault, 11 counts of assault with act of indecency, two counts of sexually touch another person without consent and two counts of common assault.
The youngest of the alleged victims was just 17 at the time Jones is accused of assaulting him, while another was a reportedly an Olympic athlete.
Court documents obtained by Nine newspapers state that police claim Jones ‘fondled’ or ‘rubbed’ three men’s penises.
Alan Jones was still privately mourning the loss of his brother Bob when he was charged with indecently assaulting young men he encountered during his decades-long radio career. He is pictured outside Day Street police station in Sydney on November 18
Other indecent acts alleged against Jones include kissing on the lips and ‘using his tongue’, as well as that he ‘touched [a complainant’s] penis, pulling his scrotum’.
Bob Jones, his only brother, did not speak out when the longtime 2GB announcer was first accused of committing indecent acts and had previously been reported to have been estranged from him.
Robert Charles Jones was one of three children raised by Charlie and Elizabeth Jones on a dairy farm at Acland in Queensland’s Darling Downs, west of Brisbane.
A notice published in the Courier-Mail and Toowoomba Chronicle on September 14 was one of few public acknowledgments of his death.
‘Passed away peacefully in Tasmania, late of Brisbane/Toowoomba,’ the notice read.
‘He is survived by his children… also his brother Alan & sister Colleen. Loved son of the late Charlie & Elizabeth Jones.’
A funeral was held at Churst Church St Lucia in Brisbane, followed by a wake at St Lucia Golf Club on October 19.
Son Ashley posted a tribute to his father on Instagram: ‘Vale to our much loved Poppy Bob. Your humour and love of life will be missed.’
Alan Jones had been quietly caring for his ailing older brother, who died aged 85 on September 8, for much of the past year. He is pictured at the Cruising Yacht Club in Rushcutters Bay after the funeral of a family friend on August 27
Robert Charles Jones was one of three children raised by Charlie and Elizabeth Jones on a dairy farm at Acland in Queensland’s Darling Downs, west of Brisbane
Jones does not have any children of his own but is godfather to many family and friends’ offspring and is particularly close to niece Tonia Taylor, the daughter of his sister Colleen.
Journalist Chris Masters wrote in his 2006 biography Jonestown that brother Bob seemed ‘more like his unpretentious bushie dad’ than the man who wrote speeches for prime minister Malclom Fraser and coached the Wallabies.
‘Although [Bob] has maintained a lifelong pride in Alan’s achievements, they don’t appear to have been kindred spirits and have not kept in close contact,’ Masters wrote back then.
‘Beyond the boundaries of loyalty and family, friends detected an unexplained distance.’
Daily Mail Australia understands that changed later in Bob’s life.
Masters quoted Bob in a passage recalling Jones winning a schoolboy cross-country race in record time against a field which included competitors more athletically gifted than him.
‘Alan might have looked like a wimp, but underneath he was tough as steel,’ Bob said.
Jones followed Bob to Brisbane’s Kelvin Grove Teachers’ College where he affected a dandy social persona which Bob described as ‘debonair’.
His teaching career would include a stint at the King’s School in Parramatta, where Jones coached rugby and in 1974 took the First XV to a GPS premiership.
Club coaching roles followed before Jones was given charge of the national team. He later went on to become Sydney’s talkback radio king.
Jones retired from 2GB in May 2020 but was presenting a program on digital network ADH TV until health problems forced him off air.
He released a video statement in March denying the assault claims.
‘I’m not going to dwell here on the allegations made about me other than I refute them entirely and the inferences associated with them,’ Jones said.
‘But the “Get-Jones” campaign is nothing new in my life.’
At the time, Daily Mail Australia quoted a friend saying Jones was ‘is an absolutely broken man’ and the allegations had left him ‘completely devastated’.
He underwent a hip replacement about two months later.
Jones has not spoken publicly since with the indecent assault charges were laid but lawyer Chris Murphy said his client would be defending them.
‘Nothing has been tested, nothing has been proven,’ Mr Murphy said on the day of Jones’s arrest.
‘Alan Jones will assert his innocence appropriately in the courtroom – he denies any misconduct, this matter will be defended.’
Jones released in video statement in March in which he refuted the allegations which were first publicly raised by Nine newspapers late last year.
He is due to appear in Downing Centre Local Court for the first time on December 18.
