Retired Sydney radio broadcaster and former Australian national rugby coach Alan Jones was charged Monday with multiple sex crimes against males over two decades, police said.
The 83-year-old will appear in a Sydney court on Dec. 18 on 24 charges relating to eight alleged victims from 2001 to 2019, Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said the youngest of the alleged victims was 17 when the first offense allegedly occurred.
“In regards to the victims, we will allege that the accused knew some of them personally, some of them professionally. And we’ll also allege that some of the victims when the alleged offense took place, was the first time that they ever met the accused,” Fitzgerald told reporters.
Jones’ lawyer Bryan Wrench did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jones was arrested Monday morning at his Sydney waterfront apartment and made no comment to media when he left a police station late Monday.
Jones hosted a popular Sydney breakfast radio from 2002 until he retired in 2020. He was regarded as one of the most power people in Australian media.
He was also a successful coach of the Australian national rugby team, the Wallabies, for four years from early 1984. The team won 86 of their 102 matches under his leadership.
Jones was also influential in conservative politics and was a speechwriter for Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Fraser was in power from 1975 until 1983. Fraser died in 2015.
Police set up a strike force to investigate Jones after The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported in December last year allegations that Jones used his position of power, first as a school teacher and later as a popular broadcaster, to prey on a number of young men.
The charges include 11 counts of aggravated indecent assault and nine counts of assault with an act of indecency. There were also two charges of sexual touching and two charges of common assault.