Veteran Australian broadcaster Alan Jones has been charged with assaulting seven men and a 17-year-old teenager. The 83-year-old man was taken into custody in his Sydney apartment early Monday morning. UNN reports this with reference to the BBC.
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Jones is one of Australia's most influential media figures. He has previously denied allegations of abuse first published by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2023.
He now faces 24 charges for incidents that occurred between 2001 and 2019, including 11 counts of aggravated indecent assault.
All but two of the charges are sexual offenses. According to police, some of the alleged victims knew the radio host personally, and at least one of them worked for him. Others were allegedly assaulted when they first met him, New South Wales Police spokesman Michael Fitzgerald told reporters.
Commissioner Karen Webb said earlier that police had conducted a "very complex," "protracted" and "thorough" investigation and expected that other possible victims may now come forward. "There is no such thing as a case that is too old to investigate," she said at a press conference.
Jones was released on bail. He will appear in court on December 18.
Jones, as noted, coached the Australian national rugby team from 1984 to 1988 before his career as a radio host. He has also occasionally worked as a speechwriter and adviser to Liberal Party figures, including former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, and has unsuccessfully run for the party's state and federal political office several times.
For decades, Jones was a Sydney-based radio host on a local radio station, and in 2020 he retired, citing health issues.
Jones, according to the BBC, drew one of the largest audiences in the country, but often caused controversy. In 2012, he made headlines for suggesting that the father of then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard "died of shame," and in 2019, he suffered a massive boycott by advertisers after saying that someone should "shove a sock" down the throat of then-New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern.
Jones has also been successfully sued for defamation on several occasions.