{"id":951859,"date":"2026-11-04T04:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T04:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/951859\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T04:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T04:06:11","slug":"alan-jones-trial-live-updates-smh-journalist-kate-mcclymont-returns-to-witness-box-in-former-2gb-broadcasters-alleged-indecent-assault-sexual-touching-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/951859\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Jones trial live updates: SMH journalist Kate McClymont returns to witness box in former 2GB broadcaster\u2019s alleged indecent assault, sexual touching trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: Graphic content<\/p>\n<p>Hello and welcome to our live coverage of former 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones\u2019 indecent assault and sexual touching trial in the historic Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p>Today, The Sydney Morning Herald\u2019s chief investigative reporter, Kate McClymont, returns to the witness box for a second day of evidence.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kate McClymont (centre), Sydney Morning Herald Editor Jordan Baker (left) and Deputy Editor Nick Ralston (right) arrive at Downing Centre Court on Wednesday.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/c33c9178b12f3096422391ce6268059df6fbb7e1.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Kate McClymont (centre), Sydney Morning Herald Editor Jordan Baker (left) and Deputy Editor Nick Ralston (right) arrive at Downing Centre Court on Wednesday.KATE GERAGHTY<\/p>\n<p>Jones, 85, is standing trial on 19 counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching without consent against five male complainants between 2003 and 2020. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denies the alleged physical acts occurred.<\/p>\n<p>All five complainants have now given evidence in court. McClymont was called to give evidence by the Crown because she spoke to three of the complainants, dubbed \u201cC\u201d, \u201cA\u201d and \u201cH\u201d to protect their identities, when she was investigating allegations against the former broadcaster.<\/p>\n<p>The Herald published a series of reports by McClymont about Jones in late 2023 and early 2024. Her reporting triggered a police investigation and McClymont gave a statement to police in June 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Jones was arrested in November that year. During cross-examination on Tuesday by Jones\u2019 barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC, McClymont was asked if there was a \u201cprofit motive\u201d for newspaper articles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe story has to sell papers, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d Bashir asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not my problem, no,\u201d McClymont replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStories are published to increase the readership of print papers [and] to get clicks online,\u201d Bashir said. \u201cNo,\u201d McClymont replied.<\/p>\n<p>Bashir pressed that higher readership numbers encourage advertisers to invest in the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a general proposition, yes, but that is not my role,\u201d McClymont said.<\/p>\n<p>McClymont said she did not know what impact her reporting on Jones had on readership figures or subscriptions. She agreed that Jones is a very public figure in NSW.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/national\/nsw\/profit-clicks-didn-t-drive-reporting-kate-mcclymont-testifies-in-jones-trial-20261103-p61aze.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read more from McClymont\u2019s first day of evidence here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men\u2019s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: Graphic content Hello and welcome to our live coverage of former 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones\u2019 indecent assault&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-951859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}