Peta Credlin: The Alan Jones allegations are not the man I know and respect

Peta Credlin asks, what has happened in this country when allegations go first to the media and not the police? Read this week’s column.

What has happened to the rule of law in this country where allegations of assault go first to the media and not the police? Because, by going to the media, names are dragged through the mud and the damage is done even where the police might later conclude there is no evidence to even lay charges let alone win the case in the court.

It always dismayed me that there was a five-hour meeting between Brittany Higgins, journalist Lisa Wilkinson and others to work-up how to play her rape allegation against Bruce Lehrmann through the media (and the parliament) to inflict maximum damage on the Morrison government long before she ever made a formal police complaint. When that tape was made public, it was damning because it exposed how the media was used as judge, jury and executioner, and not our justice system.

Alan Jones in his home at Circular Quay. Picture: Adam Yip

And it happened again last week to Alan Jones when the Sydney Morning Herald published claims of inappropriate touching by the veteran broadcaster involving four men. Most of the claims came from unnamed sources, or in the case of one man, the use of a pseudonym ‘Bradley Webster’. And it’s Webster that disturbs me most because he says he has no intention of going to police, meaning the allegation gets made, a man’s reputation is damaged, and Jones gets no change to defend the claims in court (assuming police even find there’s enough in them to warrant a charge).

We are in a dangerous place where trial by media could end up subverting our justice system.

I hope I am wrong, but this feels like a disturbing new trend.

Alan Jones, through his lawyer, denies any impropriety and says the allegations are “scandalous, grossly offensive and seriously defamatory of him” and his legal team have now received instructions to commence defamation proceedings. Because this matter is now in the hands of lawyers, I will leave it there.

Brittany Higgins leaves Federal Court during Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson. Picture: Jeremy Piper

But I do want to address the other imputation in the same newspaper story that somehow Alan Jones treats women poorly, or that he doesn’t like them or treat female co-workers respectfully.

In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. In politics as a staffer, I had contact with him over 16 years and it was always professional. I would go as far as to say that, given his own experience working for a prime minister, in his case Malcolm Fraser, he was one of the few people who understood the unique demands of the role. But it was later when I worked with him at Sky News that we became close and I got a greater insight into the man. Each Tuesday night, I would join him at the desk for his high-rating programme ‘Jones & Co’, and he went out of his way to help me learn the ropes. I was the media novice; he was the 40-year broadcasting veteran, and he could not have been more generous to me. I am not alone here; this was the experience of many others. And I have nothing but good to say about the way he’s gone into bat for me, as a woman, in a way that the ‘sisterhood’ of feminists never have.

He was and is, kind to a fault. I know of dozens and dozens of people he has helped, causes he has supported out of his own pocket and done so quietly. I judge people as I find them, and so I will leave it to my readers to make-up their own minds.

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