The previous Sydney radio host Alan Jones has been arrested by New South Wales police after a “lengthy, thorough, protracted” investigation into alleged indecent assault and sexual touching offences spanning twenty years.
Little one abuse squad detectives arrested the veteran broadcaster and former Wallabies coach about 7.45am on Monday at a unit in Sydney’s Round Quay.
Jones has beforehand denied all allegations towards him. Police spent three-and-a-half hours looking Jones’s harbourside condo at Macquarie Road, 300 metres from Sydney Opera Home and some flooring up from nice eating restaurant Aria.
Jones remained within the constructing whereas half a dozen officers searched the flat, earlier than being escorted out by way of the complicated’s carpark, avoiding the assembled media camped out by the constructing’s inexperienced marble doorway.
He was taken to Day Road police station within the CBD at the back of an unmarked police automobile simply after 11am.
Sporting a inexperienced jacket and holding what gave the impression to be a strolling stick, Jones mentioned nothing and appeared straight forward as he and three officers within the automobile drove previous reporters into the station.
They have been joined on the station earlier than noon by attorneys Chris Murphy and Bryan Wrench.
The arrest got here after months of investigation by NSW police, which started in March to research quite a few alleged indecent assaults and sexual touching incidents between 2001 and 2019.
Police on Monday morning mentioned no prices had been laid.
The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, informed reporters on Monday police have been anticipating extra individuals might come ahead and mentioned the arrest was the results of “lengthy, thorough, protracted investigation”.
“I did go to the strike pressure some weeks and months in the past,” she mentioned. “It is vitally complicated and protracted and I do know that these officers have been working tirelessly.”
The state premier, Chris Minns, declined to touch upon what he described as a “main investigation”.
“We have to let police conduct this inquiry freed from commentary from me and others,” he mentioned.
Jones hosted breakfast radio in Sydney on 2GB for practically 20 years. For a lot of that point he was one of many nation’s most influential media personalities.
His radio profession was marked by controversies, together with feedback that the prime minister Julia Gillard had lied and that her late father had “died of disgrace” consequently. In 2019 he additionally made feedback in regards to the New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, saying somebody ought to “shove a sock” down her throat.
Jones’s profession additionally spanned instructing, politics and sport. After leaving faculty he skilled as a instructor, and labored throughout totally different faculties in Queensland and NSW for a lot of the Sixties and 70s.
Earlier than his radio profession Jones tried to enter politics. He launched a number of failed makes an attempt at preselection for federal parliament and unsuccessfully ran for the NSW parliament.
Jones served as a speechwriter for Malcolm Fraser, the Liberal prime minister, till 1981.
In 1984 Jones grew to become the coach of the Wallabies, the Australian males’s rugby union crew. Throughout his time on the helm the crew loved important success.
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