09 Alan Jones | Radio ally declared 'unfavourable witness’

A former 2GB colleague and friend of Alan Jones has been accused of tailoring his evidence to favour his friend. Isobel Roe recounts how Jason Morrison was declared an unfavourable witness in court and explains why the trial has stalled over legal argument. If you have any questions you'd like Isobel and Stocky to answer in future episodes, please email [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Sexual assault support services: MARS Australia (for men affected by rape and sexual abuse) https://marsaustralia.com.au/ on (07) 3857 1222, National Survivors Foundation https://igff.org.au/ on 1300 124 43 You can find all episodes of The Case of Alan Jones here. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-case-of/the-case-of-alan-jones/106995118 The Case Of is the follow-up to the hit podcast Mushroom Case Daily, and all episodes of that show will remain available in the back catalogue of The Case Of.

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• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

• 0:46Stephen Stockwell?

  A long-time colleague of Alan Jones has been accused of withholding evidence in court, which means the prosecution has been given special permission to dial up the heat of the questions. I'm Stephen Stockwell, welcome to episode nine of the case of Alan Jones.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  Veteran broadcaster Alan Jones has been a giant of the Australian media landscape.

• 1:08Speaker 04

  Some people said that he was more powerful than the Prime Minister.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  There was an 83-year-old male arrested this morning.

• 1:15Speaker 05

  Detectives from the Child Abuse Squad turned up at Alan Jones' luxury apartment down there at Circular Quay.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  Following allegations that he indecently assaulted multiple young men.

• 1:24Speaker 06

  I'm not going to dwell here on the allegations made about me, other than to say that I refute them entirely.

• 1:31Stephen Stockwell?

  Alan Jones' former understudy, Jason Morrison, has been the feature of the fourth week of this trial. But his answers have been a little limited. So Judge Glenn Walsh has given the prosecution special permission to cross-examine him. And that is just the tip of the drama of the last few days. There, through all of this, ABC Court reporter Isabel Rowe has had a second row seat to this drama. Welcome Isabel.

• 1:56Speaker 07

  I don't know if that's meant to be an insult, but thank you, Stocky.

• 1:59Stephen Stockwell?

  It's lovely to have you back. Not an insult. We'll get into the specifics a bit later this episode. Before we dive in, can you sum up the last few days in 60 seconds or so?

• 2:07Speaker 07

  We've heard what former 2GB host Jason Morrison says he saw at this lunch where he was with Complainant C. And Complainant C alleges he was touched indecently under the table by Alan Jones. We've also heard The Crown argue to treat Jason Morrison as an unhelpful witness. And that has elicited some more clear responses from Jason Morrison. But his story still differs from that of Complainant C's and of other witnesses. And that has led the prosecution to argue that their witness is essentially trying to benefit Alan Jones, his longtime friend. And then Jason Morrison said something which really threw a spanner in the works. And this is sort of the first time in this trial where

• 2:50Speaker 07

  things have really ground to a halt, or at least slowed down quite a bit.

• 2:58Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, we'll unpack Isabel, kind of what that was a bit later this episode. But appreciate you wrapping up the last few days in 60 seconds for us. I will say, while we've had a quiet day in court yesterday, I did really appreciate a little change in the tempo, because there's been a lot that we have been unpacking and my, my brain did need a little bit of a break. This has been the week of Jason Morrison. He was the feature of our last episode. He's a former colleague, whose evidence goes against that of Complainant C, as you've just mentioned. Complainant C alleging that Alan Jones touched his penis at a lunch, and there were people that saw this and were laughing at him at that time. What has Jason Morrison said about this?

• 3:39Speaker 07

  Well, not much, in that he still maintains that he didn't see anything untoward happen at this lunch. Because he was saying that he didn't see what was happening under the table, that he didn't overhear a particular conversation where another witness supposedly says to Complainant C on the way out, "Oh, you copped a field and you like that." Jason Morrison maintains he didn't hear that, even though others say he was there. Because of that, The Crown has moved to cross-examine him as an unhelpful witness. It's something you can do under the law. And they've challenged him on his account of the lunch. And they have put to him the more specific questions, that he did see Alan Jones rest his hand

• 4:24Speaker 07

  on C's lap, and that he did react. But Jason Morrison says, no, he didn't. And The Crown's put to him specifically that he overheard the comment on the way out of the lunch, "You copped a field, didn't you?" And that he, you know, was in that conversation. And he has also denied that. And the prosecution has also been able to take him to conversations that he had with the journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, Kate McLeimont, as well, and text messages about Kate McLeimont.

• 4:59Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah. I want to drill into what this kind of unfavourable witness motion means, Isabel, because there was like, quite significant legal argument around whether or not the prosecution would be allowed to do this or not. They had to make submissions, had to write a whole bunch of stuff to Judge Glenn Walsh. They had to stand up and argue. Both Georgina Wright, the prosecution barrister, and Gabrielle Bishir, the defence barrister, argued and presented their arguments to Judge Glenn Walsh about why they should or shouldn't be doing that. What did it mean, once that permission was granted, for how Jason Morrison was questioned?

• 5:30Speaker 07

  Well, it means that they can essentially ask leading questions. So one of the things that we see happen in this trial is often the Crown might be asking a question of a witness, and the defence, Gabrielle Bishir, might leap up and object and say, "That's leading." And by that, she means that's sort of giving them too much information and taking them to something and trying to get them to say a specific thing. Because that's not what The Crown is allowed to do when it's asking questions of its own witness. But in this case, The Crown made an application to the court to be able to ask those really specific questions, because Jason Morrison was not what they thought answering the questions

• 6:12Speaker 07

  in the way that he had potentially previously in his statement. And he wasn't corroborating evidence that other people had given. And they made an application, and a lot of that argument was had without Jason Morrison. So we won't go into it in huge detail. But basically, instead of the Crown saying to Jason Morrison, "What did you see when you were sitting opposite Complainant C?", they can say, "You saw Alan Jones touch Complainant C under the table, didn't you?" And he said, "No." But that's like, that's the more sort of specific question, which you would hear usually in a defence cross-examination. But at this time, it was the prosecution putting those hard questions on him.

• 6:56Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah. Yeah. Interesting to see the kind of change in roles. Usually, as you mentioned, this is the, these are the questions Gabrielle Bishir is asking a witness, saying, "You saw X, or X didn't happen, did it?" And that's the kind of challenge they're getting. And yeah, in this case, Georgina Wright, the prosecution barrister, asking those harder questions. Where did it go, once they started?

• 7:14Speaker 07

  Well, basically, there were a few points that, as I mentioned, The Crown wanted to hit on. Firstly, was this suggestion of whether he saw the hand allegedly under the table on C's lap. So Georgina Wright said, "During lunch, I suggest you saw the defendant with his hand under the table, appearing to have his hand in Complainant C's lap, didn't you?" And he said, "No, I didn't." And she said, "You smirked at C, didn't you?" And he sort of objected to the tone of it. But she asked again, "You smirked at C across the table during the lunch?" And he said, "Oh, probably. We were all sort of smirking and laughing." But she was asking those questions because other witnesses had given

• 7:57Speaker 07

  evidence that Jason Morrison was in this group, smirking and laughing, because they had seen something untoward happening across the table. And he consistently denied it. She asked questions as well about the sort of jokes that were being made and the banter. Jason Morrison said the sort of jokes they were making were, you know, blokey, bantery. It was all about the fact that their friend, Complainant C, was sitting next to Alan Jones. He was next to the boss. "That's not as fun as our end of the table, where all of his mates are." And that's what Jason Morrison describes as the tone of the jokes. But other

• 8:38Speaker 07

  witnesses have said the tone of the jokes was about the fact that they could see Alan Jones giving attention to Complainant C that was beyond, you know, the norm. And so one of the questions was, the joking was about the defendant appearing to give some romantic attention to C, wasn't it? And Jason Morrison said, "Well, that was our joke." But then he was asked more about the attention later. Was it romantic? Was it sexual? And he actually then said, "No, it wasn't romantic. It wasn't sexual." You know, we knew, we joked about Alan Jones was a generous person to C, but that the

• 9:15Speaker 07

  attention wasn't untoward, I guess, in his answers. So, and he said, you know, if I, I think he was asked specifically, you know, "You were joking because the defendant had his hand on C's lap?" And he said, "No. If I was aware of that, given my closeness to C and my sometimes forthright manner, I would have raised it. I didn't because I didn't see that happen." So despite the fact that they were able to ask more questions, The Crown didn't get really a different response from Jason Morrison in the end.

• 9:47Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah. And in fact, he kind of reacted quite strongly to the suggestion that he was tailoring his evidence to, you know, kind of be in favour of Alan Jones.

• 9:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, he did. He sort of, he said it was offensive, essentially. He said, "That's offensive. I'm here under oath. You know, that's not what's happening." He pushed back on any suggestion that he was, yeah, changing a story, or, or, you know, as in Georgina Wright's words, "tailoring his evidence."

• 10:18Stephen Stockwell?

  Now, Isabel, as well as the lunch, there's been a lot of conversation about Kate McLeimont. Kate McLeimont is a journalist who works with the Sydney Morning Herald. She is the journalist who broke the story of the alleged abuse by Alan Jones of the individuals, some of whom we're hearing from in this trial. And Jason Morrison and Alan Jones had had conversations about Kate McLeimont. It seems they've also spoken about the Sydney Morning Herald. And it didn't sound like Jason Morrison appreciated the messages and conversations he'd had with Alan Jones about, you know, Kate and that publication being presented to the court.

• 10:51Speaker 07

  Yeah. Look, it's a lesson in, never text, never tweet, we used to say when X was Twitter. Never write anything down, because these were private texts between Jason Morrison and Alan Jones. And they are now being presented in a public court of law. The texts were from between sort of 2017, 2018, 2020. So before these allegations were in the newspapers.

• 11:22Speaker 07

  But Jason Morrison was basically asked, you're a long time friend of Alan Jones? Yes. You've kept in contact via text messages over the years? Yes, he did.

• 11:31Speaker 07

  Extensive text messages? Yes. And then the Crown said, you've held a long disdain for Kate McLeimont and her investigative journalism, haven't you? And he said, oh, I don't know. I mean, I've been disappointed in her journalism sometimes. I thought some stuff was a bit average. And then, you know, the bundle of documents appears and it's this string of text messages which someone's phone has been subpoenaed to give. I'm guessing it's Alan Jones's phone. And, you know, there are some fairly choice words in there where Jason Morrison has described Kate McLeimont's reporting on other issues

• 12:08Speaker 07

  and other, you know, stories as hysterical scrutiny. She, he at one point describes the Sydney Morning Herald to Alan Jones as washed up jealous rivals.

• 12:24Speaker 07

  And the questions were along the lines of, so you clearly have a view, don't you? That the Sydney Morning Herald's reporting of certain matters is bad? And, you know, the questions were trying to take Jason Morrison to the fact that he's previously said a lot of things that he, about the Sydney Morning Herald that he didn't like, that he doesn't like their reporting, he doesn't respect it, that he has called Kate McLeimont at one point a piece of work. And so Georgina Wright was concerned that this meant that he had a long-held disdain of the Sydney Morning Herald and therefore a reason to not like their reporting on his good friend, Alan Jones.

• 13:03Speaker 07

  And a lot of the responses from Jason Morrison were, you know, a bit sort of, he, he was sort of like, I'm, I was saying this in a private forum to my friend Alan Jones, you know, I've got an opinion about things, everyone has an opinion, don't they? And, you know, I would have not said this potentially if I knew it would be in court, but here we are. So, um, he was a bit, he did seem a bit unhappy that those messages were being expressed publicly.

• 13:29Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm. Yeah, I think if I'm ever in court and someone says, have you ever X? And I would just be flashing my mind back to what bundle of documents is about to appear? Where they're going to back up the suggestion they have just made?

• 13:42Speaker 07

  Scary.

• 13:43Stephen Stockwell?

  I thought Jason Morrison's reply at one point, because he did seem a little bit frustrated with these being presented and this line of questioning and, you know, him saying at one point, look, last time I checked, I'm allowed to have an opinion in a private conversation with a friend or, or something like that. He also seemed a little bit annoyed at Kate McLeimont because she had interviewed him for one of the stories that she was writing about Alan Jones in 2023, but didn't use any of his quotes.

• 14:08Speaker 07

  Yes, um, and that sort of was brought up a little bit, but he, he initially mentioned it, um, that one of the reasons he said he doesn't like Kate McLeimont, or at least hasn't at certain points, is because she called him to speak to him for one of the stories that she wrote about Alan Jones. And then he read the story and he did not feature.

• 14:33Speaker 07

  And we went on to hear that he did feature in later stories that she did, but, um, yeah, he wasn't impressed that his quotes were not used initially.

• 14:45Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm. Yeah, it seemed like he'd given a kind of glowing endorsement of Alan Jones in, in one of those conversations and would have liked to, part of that to have been included, but there was a point, I think of one of these conversations, Isabel, where Jason Morrison was given a transcript of it. And things escalated very quickly with basically the surprise that a transcript existed at all.

• 15:07Speaker 07

  Yeah. So, yes, this is where things sort of fell off the track really. It, it surprised both the Crown and the defence, I think. Basically, during the questioning, the Crown was, had finished with the text messages, trying to show that Jason Morrison had held this long-held disdain of the Sydney Morning Herald. And then the next bundle of documents were presented and that was a transcript of an interview that Jason Morrison had done with Kate McLeimont. And Jason Morrison goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, where did you get that? You know, I didn't, I didn't consent for that conversation to be recorded. And, um,

• 15:50Speaker 07

  I think you saw, because you can see from the link and I can't see from sitting behind them, the looks on the faces of the Crown and the defence. This was not something that has previously been discussed, clearly. And his honour, Judge Walsh, got quite annoyed also. He, the defence leapt up and said, you know, the witness doesn't know this, this was recorded, this is a big issue, we need to stop.

• 16:13Stephen Stockwell?

  Hmm. And this has really slowed things down. This has led to quite a significant amount of legal argument over the last couple of days. I mean, I will say before Jason Morrison was asked to leave the room, there was this very tense exchange, as you've described, Isabel, and yeah, I could see the surprise as I think both Georgina Wright and Gabrielle Bashir realised, you know, that maybe that recording had been made without the consent of Jason Morrison. And while everyone's sorting this out and his honour saying to Jason Morrison, okay, well, look, you, we have an issue to raise here, you'll need to wait outside. Jason Morrison says, I've got an issue to raise as well. How has this recording been done? And so sort of like, well, this isn't actually about you, Jason Morrison, you need to wait outside, we need to sort this out.

• 16:56Stephen Stockwell?

  But yeah, that legal argument, Isabel, has been the feature of, I think, almost an entire day of, of court at this point. Can we get into what they're talking about at this point?

• 17:06Speaker 07

  We can't, because Jason Morrison has been kept out of the room. But in this case, there is someone to prejudice by talking about legal argument, and it is Jason Morrison. Were he to listen to the podcast, we wouldn't want to tell him anything that he doesn't know and he's being precluded from knowing until his witness, till his evidence finishes. So, um, we won't go into it in detail. Safe to say, he does know that there is argument happening right now about the fact that there are calls that were made to him that may or may not have been recorded without his consent and that that has caused some legal consternation and that that's, you know, that's the argument that's being had.

• 17:49Stephen Stockwell?

  It's been going on for, you know, like I said, Isabel, over a day at this point. Where is Jason Morrison that whole time?

• 17:56Speaker 07

  He has to sit outside in the foyer, which is, um, I mean, it is very boring. It's sort of, it's, it's difficult for witnesses because they come to court expecting to give evidence and then something can occur, which it has. And the legal argument can go on for, you know, how long is a piece of string? And the witness needs to stay there and wait until, um, you know, they're finished. And, and he's just been sitting out with, you know, at times the other journalists, just waiting for his turn to go back in. In fact, I think Judge Walsh almost forgot at the end of yesterday that the witness was still out there and that he had to be called back in for about three seconds. And he said, don't even bother coming back up to the witness box.

• 18:41Speaker 07

  I'm so sorry, but we're still not done and, you know, you can go home and, and come back on Friday.

• 18:48Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, well, there we go. Hopefully, as his honour reminded Jason Morrison the other day, not listening to any podcasts in the meantime. So even if we did talk about it, he wouldn't know. Also, Isabel, I do want to apologize, I didn't mean anything when I said you have a second row seat earlier in the episode. It is simply that the front row seats in that courtroom are often reserved. So, you know, that's where you are.

• 19:07Speaker 07

  That's true. They are, they are all reserved for no one, might I add. There are lots of reserved signs and no one sits there. There were some kids that came in the other day and sat in the front row boldly, but for some reason, if, if, if there's a complainant on screen, Alan Jones will sit in front of me to the side in that front row because he cannot be seen in that particular eye line if from the person on the ABL. But when there is just a, a non-complainant witness, Alan Jones sits on the other side of the court from me and then there's no one in the front row.

• 19:38Stephen Stockwell?

  You're tucked away safely, uh, hidden behind a row of chairs in case of an avalanche of paper or any such disaster.

• 19:45Speaker 07

  Well, that's right. There was, there was a huge amount of, of aforementioned paper that tumbled off the, the desk of some lawyers yesterday. Took quite a bit of picking up. Another, another reason why we should have a computer instead of a pile of books.

• 20:02Stephen Stockwell?

  Exactly. Yeah, you get an iPad. It's not, it's not going to hurt anyone if it tumbles off. There's no risk of a paper cut coming your way, Isabel. Look, we are getting plenty of questions sent through to the case of at abc.net.au. Really appreciate hearing from you, your questions or your feedback, all your notes and discussion points. There's been some further questions, Isabel, about, you know, an issue that we've talked about previously, the cross-examination of some of the complainants that we can't get into at this stage, which we will be getting into later in the trial. I do want to get into a question from Kayleigh though, at the moment. She has a question about the text messages between complainant C and Alan Jones. We talked a lot about the messages that C had sent to Alan Jones. Kayleigh's wonder, wondering if there were any text responses from Alan Jones in the messages?

• 20:47Speaker 07

  Yeah, um, and, uh, perhaps we haven't focused on them as much because we've been talking about the awkwardness of C's replies. But yes, it's essentially what, what's been tabled is like, it was, you know, months, years of, of back and forth texts. So, yes, C sent messages to Alan Jones that he described as embarrassing, but Alan Jones also sent messages which we've described and were described in court as, you know, sexual, were making innuendo jokes or comments about his genitals, you know, sort of wanting to see them or how big is it?

• 21:25Speaker 07

  Lots of messages that had, you know, love, love you at the end, big hugs, big kisses, that romantic tone which the complainant described. So, yes, essentially it's a, it was a back and forth text message stream, you know, like you'd have with a friend that was tabled and we've heard, heard about, yeah.

• 21:45Stephen Stockwell?

  Yep. Uh, thank you, Isabel. Thank you, Kayleigh, as well, for a lovely question. Another one here, Isabel, from Therese. Therese is wondering, why are we hearing all the complainants together while in some other trials, they're all kept separate and you have a number of different trials?

• 21:59Speaker 07

  Um, I have thought about this and I don't know the answer. I guess it's, it's a decision for the prosecution to put all the complainants of, of someone together or not. I guess it's their decision about how to run a trial. And how to present evidence. If the defence ever objected to it, we don't know that they did. And they clearly didn't win because we're doing it this way. One of the issues that you avoid if you don't have a jury is that, you know, in other cases, there might be a concern about prejudicing a jury by, you know, having six people together.

• 22:42Speaker 07

  You know, one person's case might be more difficult to discern if you've got this evidence from these other cases. But because we're dealing with a judge only, this is a person who's very skilled at, you know, separating sort of legal argument and separating prejudice in his mind. He knows exactly how to do this. And so there's less a risk of prejudicing him, I suppose, by having all six people in one trial.

• 23:07Stephen Stockwell?

  Great. Thank you, Isabel. Thank you, Therese. Great question. And one more here from Demo in the Hunter Valley. Isabel, Demo's listening to us while he's driving trucks around. He's wondering about the descriptions of Alan Jones's genitals and what's alleged to have happened with complainant Jay in the bedroom. Now, we left out some of those details and he's wondering if we left out some of those details because we didn't want to be indecent.

• 23:32Speaker 07

  Yes, that is exactly what we did, Demo. Sometimes there are things that you hear in the courtroom. In fact, a lot of the time, there are things you hear in the courtroom which are just not to be repeated in a public sphere, which is a podcast. We give you as much description as we think that you will need to be able to understand the story. But we don't tell you absolutely everything because some of it is just not nice and can be decided on by the judge and he can have all the detail and, you know, we hear all the detail, but we'll pare it back a bit for the audience.

• 24:13Stephen Stockwell?

  Yeah, I will say, Demo, that we spent quite a bit of time talking about a lot of this stuff as well. You know, do we go into this detail? Do we need to get into this? It's a real kind of conversation and a kind of constantly changing analysis of what you need to hear, what we think you need to hear, what's detail that we can leave out, all that sort of thing. So if you have thoughts on that, Boyd will have the email address for you. [email protected] is where you can reach us with all sorts of feedback like that, but also questions. If there's something that you are wondering about, if there's something that's keeping you from really engaging with this trial in a way that you would like to be able to, please get in touch, send us an email. Love to hear from you and we do read every single one of them and action them appropriately.

• 24:53Stephen Stockwell?

  I've got a little category tag system that I really enjoy popping details on the emails. So please send me one so I can use my categories in the Outlook inbox. Isabel, thank you so much for taking us through this episode. Where are we off to next? What's happening in this trial? Are we getting back into it at some point?

• 25:12Speaker 07

  No, that's... But look, that would be nice. Time is ticking. We, once this legal argument is finished, which should be today, we will, on Friday, hopefully, continue to hear from Jason Morrison and finish his evidence, hopefully fairly quickly. And then we'll continue on with the rest of the C-related, complainant C-related witnesses.

• 25:40Stephen Stockwell?

  Thank you so much for this episode. Really appreciate you being here with us to talk us through all of this. Isabel and I will be back in your feed next week, so make sure you grab ABC Listen to keep up to date with all the latest. I'll also be back in your feed with an update on the case of the two intruders. Steve Fabrizi and Joseph Ikone were found guilty of the manslaughter of Irma Plasix in 1999. That trial ran at the start of this year. And if you want to follow that along, I would highly recommend diving into our feed and having a listen to all of the coverage that we did for that with Elizabeth Byrne and James Viver out of Canberra. It was a fascinating trial with so many twists and turns, some interesting kind of tactics and approaches by police to get to that point. The way DNA was used in that trial was fascinating as well. One of the first cases in Australia where DNA was really gathered and collected on

• 26:25Stephen Stockwell?

  them, being able to relied on, you know, two and a half decades later was kind of an incredible process to witness. We'll be finding out how long Steve Fabrizi and Joseph Ikone will be spending in prison for the killing of Irma Plasix next week. So grab ABC Listen, best place to follow The Case of. And if you're using another podcast app, just leave us a rating and review because it makes it so much easier for other people to find us. We'll be back in your feed soon.

• 26:54Stephen Stockwell?

  The Case of Alan Jones is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. This episode was reported by Isabel Roam, presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rollinson. Thank you to video producer Dylan Bean. Also, thank you to senior lawyer, our legal queen Jasmine Sims for her legal advice throughout the week, also to the New South Wales newsroom and to Audio Studios manager, Eric George. This episode was produced on the land of the Gadigal and we're on to your people.