Alan Jones told prominent athlete ‘I would like to be kissing you all night’ after alleged assault, trial hears

A prominent athlete froze and was “shocked and embarrassed” when Alan Jones kissed him on the side of his mouth at a public event, the broadcaster’s trial at Sydney’s Downing Centre has heard.The witness said the kiss on the corner of his lips happened years after Jones sent him a weekly bouquet of flowers after he had complimented the flowers on Jones’s dining table. He said Jones’s driver would drop the flowers at his home every week.The court is hearing the first day of evidence from the third alleged victim of Jones, known as complainant M, whose case involves two of the 22 charges of indecent assault and sexual touching against Jones.The trial is in its seventh week and Jones has pleaded not guilty to all charges.Jones bombarded complainant M with romantic text messages such as “I love you darling” “big big kisses” and “I am in love with you too”.One text read out in court said: “I love the photo. I love you. I want to kiss you for hours.”Prosecutor Georgina Wright SC read out many of the text exchanges and asked the witness how they made him feel.M said the texts made him uncomfortable. He said he did not tell the complainant he was in love with him and he would try to push him away verbally by calling him “mate” when he professed his love.When Jones texted him to say: “Remember always I love you xxx” M told the court he thought that “this is a person who loves me and who is in love with me”.The athlete said Jones kissed him on the corner of his mouth as he walked across a large event room to get back to his table.He didn’t say anything at the time, he said. “I was shocked and embarrassed and I knew I did not want to be there,” he said.“I’m not certain, but I think I froze at that time,” he said. “I was in disbelief of where this was happening, and I didn’t understand why it was happening, and there’s no reason to suggest why in this public situation you’d kiss someone this way.”After the dinner, Jones texted M saying something like “I would like to be kissing you all night”, the witness said.Asked by Wright if he consented to being kissed this way, he answered no.The athlete testified that he was interviewed by the 2GB broadcaster on multiple occasions as a teenage athlete, later developing a friendship which included visiting his apartment at Macquarie Street in Circular Quay for meals.He said Jones always introduced him in an “incredibly overwhelmingly complimentary” and “flattering way”, which made me him feel “awkward and uncomfortable in how glowing it was”.He said Jones would welcome him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek and use flattering terms like “champion” and “beautiful man”.The court heard Jones texted the alleged victim with words to the effect: “If someone hasn’t told you, let me be the person who tells you that you’re special.”The witness said it was flattering at first but then it “got uncomfortable” because not even his parents talked to him that way.The first time he had a meal at the apartment he complimented the tableware and he later received a set of the same tableware from the broadcaster.One one occasion when he visited Jones’s Fitzroy Falls farm in the Southern Highlands, Jones flew him there in a helicopter.The witness said on another visit to the farm with his room mate, he broke down and cried when telling Jones about his financial difficulties.The broadcaster offered to help and organised a meeting at Jones’s apartment – known as the Toaster – between the bank, his agent and his accountant. However,The witness also told the court about a second alleged assault, which he said took place at Jones’s apartment.He said he was alone with Jones at his harbourside apartment when he forcefully pushed Jones away after he started to kiss him on the face and press his genitalia against his leg.“The defendant had begun kissing me from my cheek,” he told the court.“The kisses were getting closer to my mouth and at the same time as kissing me he was saying things like, ‘I love you so much, you don’t know how much I love you. “As I could feel his genitalia against me, I pushed him away, saying, ‘OK Mate’ in a tone to say ‘get away from me’.”The witness said his tone was “defiant,” as if to say “get away from me”.Years later when the Sydney Morning Herald published an investigation about Jones, the witness said he told friends and his mother he too had been allegedly assaulted.The witness said he felt “like I couldn’t get out of where I was at that time”.He said he left the apartment without saying goodbye and didn’t immediately tell anyone.M said he was apprehensive about offending Jones because of the influential position he believed he held in the media.“I was always concerned about the reputation he had and how he could destroy people, and his perceived level of power,” he said.The trial before judge Glenn Walsh continues.