By Kate McClymont
Former NRL player Shane O’Grady has detailed his interactions with Alan Jones for the first time.Credit: Peter Stoop
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An investigation into a string of alleged indecent assaults by Alan Jones has prompted a series of new claims about how the broadcaster abused his power, including that he put his hand down a schoolboy’s shorts and that he presided over compulsory nude massage sessions for football players.
Musician and writer Scott Walker has alleged Jones put his hand down his athletic shorts while Jones was his teacher at The King’s School in Sydney. Former Balmain rugby league player Shane O’Grady has also claimed Jones presided over compulsory naked massage sessions while coaching a first-grade rugby league team. Jones denies the latest allegations of inappropriate conduct.
Balmain Tigers had high hopes for Alan Jones when he was appointed coach in the early 1990s.Credit: Rick Stevens
Jones, 82, has vehemently denied previous allegations, with his lawyer describing them as “scandalous, grossly offensive and seriously defamatory of him”.
Walker first encountered Jones in the 1970s as a 14-year-old student at The King’s School in North Parramatta. Jones was the English master and sports coach at the prestigious private institution.
A gifted student and star athlete, Walker said he would get a note to come up to Jones’ apartment in Broughton House before training so Jones could strap his upper thigh.
During strenuous training sessions, Walker would occasionally get a stitch in his abdomen. He alleges Jones would come over and “shove his hand down in my shorts”, Walker recalled this week. He said Jones told him, “I am just finding the bubble”.
While Walker does not claim Jones touched his penis, he alleges Jones “made out that the stitch came from somewhere in the groin area, to the left of the penis”. Because Jones was his coach, the teenage athlete says he thought “maybe there’s some physiology, something bubbling in your bloodstream” which, if Jones bursts it, “my stitch will go”.
Sometimes after training, Walker alleges Jones would suggest the schoolboy shower in Jones’ own bathroom, while he sat on the toilet talking.
“So you get out of the shower and you have to sit on his bed and that’s when he’d do the usual spiel of, ‘Oh Scotty, you know how much you mean to me. You could be an Olympic runner. You just have to listen to me. You’ve got to stop this nonsense, spending so much time with women. They just want to be f—ed and have babies.’”
Jones would often drive Walker home in his orange Renault. Walker alleges there were times when his teacher would pull over in a deserted car park and would “moon up at you … ‘You do know how much you mean to me’.”
Walker also alleges Jones wrote gushing letters to his teenage pupil. There was nothing sexual in the letters, said Walker, who is now 67. “It was more a generalised, over-the-top, emotional statement” about how “you’ve come to be such a big part of my life”.
“He’d then come in for the kill, which was, ‘You could achieve so much but you’re not going to do it unless you’ve got me to guide you’,” Walker claims.
According to Chris Masters’ 2006 unauthorised biography Jonestown, a King’s teacher discovered a similar inappropriate letter in a boy’s desk. “In it, Alan spoke of thinking about the boy late at night, expressing his love.” It was a contributory event that later saw Jones agree with the headmaster’s request in 1975 that he resign, Masters wrote.
While Jones’ alleged infatuation and voyeurism were something Walker, a confident teenager, could deal with, what Jones did to less favoured boys horrified Walker. He witnessed his teacher and coach “absolutely ripping to shreds boys in front of other boys at athletics and at football and in the classroom”.
By the time he was 17, Walker was tired of how he was being treated and had a “huge showdown with Jones”, who he alleges retaliated by giving the gifted English student zero out of 50 in one of his final exams. Jones claimed at the time it was because the student’s handwriting was illegible.
But Jones’ alleged act of petty vindictiveness meant Walker didn’t receive the prestigious King’s Prize for English – a feat both his older brothers had achieved. Walker later came second in the state for English.
“It was the classic abuse of power,” said Walker, who described the malice behind Jones’ alleged vindictiveness as “quite extraordinary”.
Walker alleges that Jones’ humiliating verbal abuse of less confident teenage boys had a corrosive impact on them. In the last week of his life, a school friend of Walker’s, who died of a terminal illness in 1990 at the age of 33, spoke to the musician about the long-lasting effect that Jones’ alleged belittling had had on his life.
In a response to the allegations, Jones’ lawyer has said “in the unreasonably short time allowed to respond, we have obtained credible information from several persons who directly refute your malicious allegations” but did not offer any details.
‘He absolutely destroyed me’
“I could have been something,” said Shane O’Grady, 53, this week. The former rugby league front rower wept as he recounted how Jones’ 15-minute tirade in front of his teammates about his uselessness and hopelessness as a footballer crushed his confidence and contributed to the downfall of his career.
O’Grady said it was the early 1990s and, as a 21-year-old, he was thrilled to be playing first grade for Sydney’s Balmain Tigers alongside his childhood heroes Steve “Blocker” Roach and Benny Elias.
Shane O’Grady with his dog Bluey on the NSW Central Coast. Credit: Peter Stoop
O’Grady and his other teammates were uncomfortable as they watched what they described as Jones’ predatory behaviour towards player Jacin Sinclair. “He was always touching him, touching him on the shoulders,” O’Grady said.
“My locker was next to the showers,” recalled O’Grady, who says he observed Jones watching Sinclair as he showered. “It was disgusting,” he said.
One day at training, Jones asked O’Grady to scratch his back. O’Grady refused. The talented front rower alleges he was subsequently demolished by Jones in a vicious putdown in front of the entire team. “He absolutely destroyed me. I was a mess.”
Other players, who asked not to be quoted due to fear of retribution, confirmed Jones’ extraordinary outburst directed at their teammate.
They also recalled their discomfort when Jones instituted compulsory nude massages for the team on Monday afternoons. Jones patrolled the dressing room the entire time the masseurs were working on the tables. “He was never out of that room, never,” O’Grady said.
After the massages, the team was expected to go to Jones’ Newtown house for dinner.
One senior player also recalled Jones’ “weird” team doctor, Les Blackstock, being present at some of the massage sessions. Years later, in 2020, Blackstock – a former bankrupt and a one-time business partner of a jailed cocaine kingpin – was struck off for seven years following multiple findings of professional misconduct.
Multiple women have successfully sued Blackstock, who had no surgical training, for botched vaginal and breast surgery, which a court heard he carried out “without an anaesthetist, in a house”.
Jacin Sinclair was only one of a string of often troubled young athletes who were looked after financially by Jones. One of Jones’ personal assistants recalls being directed to call a major company to demand a $50,000 sponsorship for another one of Jones’ proteges.
Others became Jones’ drivers or got jobs, mostly that didn’t last, at companies where Jones had sway.
Jones secured one swimmer a $50,000-a-year-marketing job. It took 10 months before the company’s management discovered the swimmer had never turned up for a single day’s work.
When Sinclair, 38, died from an overdose in December 2010, Jones broke down twice during his morning radio program.
The Toaster and the dressing gown
It was March 2014 and Angus Martin, a recent graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), had been encouraged to contact Jones by a family friend who worked at the 2GB radio network. The Herald and The Age have given Martin a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Jones, the station’s top-rating breakfast host, was well known for his support of young, aspiring musicians and sportsmen, Martin was told.
After sending a photo and resume, Jones arranged to meet Martin. At the last minute, Martin was instructed to come to Jones’ glamorous residence at The Toaster, an apartment building in Circular Quay, before going to a show at the nearby Sydney Opera House.
Martin said he was on his “best behaviour” as Jones, then 75, was a famous person who might help him financially. But barely had the lights gone down when he alleges Jones’ hand was on his upper thigh.
“It was so inappropriate,” said Martin, who says he tried to move his legs to the far side of his chair.
Martin, who had left his jacket at Jones’ apartment, went back to the residence to retrieve it. Martin alleges the broadcaster told him that he wanted to discuss Martin’s musical career but that he had to do a few things and would be back in a minute.
Having collected his jacket, Martin said he was “easing my way to the door”. But he alleges Jones emerged “in his dressing gown with nothing underneath”.
“It was very clear that I was uncomfortable,” Martin said.
After telling Jones he lived on the northern beaches and had to rush for the last ferry, he alleges Jones gave him an all-encompassing hug, adding to his discomfort.
“He was absolutely devastated,” recalled Martin’s mother, adding that as soon as her son got on the ferry he called her and “just sobbed into the phone”.
Alan Jones at his home at The Toaster in Circular Quay.Credit: Wade Laube
His mother urged him to talk to someone in authority, but her son said no one would believe his word over the most powerful radio host in the country.
This masthead’s original investigation revealed that a musician in his 20s was also allegedly invited to the Circular Quay apartment by Jones, who was 40 years his senior.
They were listening to music when he said Jones produced a dressing gown suggesting the musician might feel “more casual” if he put it on. He alleges Jones “didn’t initiate. He just did it. He just grabs you and kisses you all over.”
Martin and his mother recall the email Jones sent chastising the young musician for his ingratitude after Jones claimed he’d “taken time out of his schedule” to discuss his career. Martin said he replied that he was happy to meet him again but that his mother “would love to come” along too. Jones never replied.
“It was a clear abuse of power,” said Martin of the experience, which contributed to a change of direction in his life.
These latest series of claims of abuse of power by Jones follow recent articles that revealed six men who alleged they were targeted by the former talkback star and indecently assaulted.
A former radio 2GB employee, who alleges he was repeatedly groped by Jones, said: “If I went to the police, Jones could be charged. What he did to me was a criminal offence.”
Threats to sue
Jones last week sent a concerns notice to Nine, the publisher of the Herald and The Age, threatening defamation proceedings. This is the first step towards commencing defamation proceedings but does not necessarily mean legal action will proceed.
The concerns notice, sent by lawyer Mark O’Brien, demanded the articles be removed from online and a front-page apology.
“The allegations are false and have no basis in fact,” O’Brien said.
The letter went on to claim that journalists wanted to destroy Jones’ reputation because they resented his rise as one of Australia’s most prominent commentators.
“Over many years, certain journalists employed by Nine (formerly Fairfax) newspapers have been resentful of our client’s prominence as a commentator on many political and cultural issues, and the malicious and concocted allegations giving rise to the imputations constitute a concerted attempt to destroy our client’s reputation,” O’Brien said.
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