In a Sydney court this week, the mother of the youngest alleged victim of broadcaster Alan Jones testified that she "absolutely trusted" the 2GB host and felt "comfortable" letting her 17-year-old son spend a weekend at Jones's Fitzroy Falls property. The young man, identified as complainant A, alleges that during that stay, Jones kissed him, put his tongue in his mouth, and touched him on the bottom. "I felt violated and I felt gross," he told the court earlier - a sentiment that, one imagines, tends to linger.

Complainant A is one of five men who accuse Jones, 85, of sexual touching between 2003 and 2020. All five have now finished giving evidence as the trial enters its 11th week. Jones has pleaded not guilty to 21 charges of indecent assault and sexual touching. The trial, at the Downing Centre local court, has been a long, grim slog, interrupted by multiple legal arguments.

A's mother, who is divorced and was facing financial ruin while mourning a death in the family, told the court she "absolutely trusted" Jones because she had read many emails from him praising her son. "I was just so pleased to have an older mentor in [A's] life that was interesting and interested in so many things … and saw my son was as intelligent as he is and engaging," she said. It's the kind of glowing endorsement that, in hindsight, reads less like mentorship and more like grooming - though the court will decide.

Jones had been corresponding with A since the boy was 13 and asked him for help with his mother's "dire" financial problems. The court heard that Jones never invited the mother to his home, but invited the teenager on multiple occasions. The boy had meals with Jones at a local pub and at his Circular Quay apartment - invitations that, curiously, never extended to his mother.

When her son returned from a two-night stay during the school holidays, the mother said she "knew straight away something was up" because "his mood was different" and he wasn't sleeping. "He told me he had broken a plate and he was remorseful about that," she said. Complainant A earlier told the court Jones was "frustrated, annoyed and angry" when he dropped a $1,500 Versace plate. Because nothing says "avuncular mentor" like losing your temper over expensive crockery.

Ten days after he returned from Fitzroy Falls, her son handed her a "scrawly" note and said, "I don't want to talk about it." The mother broke down in tears in the witness box when a court officer handed her a copy of the note. Her son had written a vague account saying he "felt violated at Fitzroy Falls about an incident of a sexual nature."

She read the note and asked her son if he wanted to report the alleged assault to police. He declined, saying: "I wasn't raped. It is probably not a big thing in the scheme of it. It will be my word against his and he is a powerful man." A sobering assessment of how justice works - or doesn't - when the accused is famous.

The witness said she told her son "not to have any contact" with Jones, but she continued to correspond with the broadcaster about issues he had been helping her with, including repairs on her house, which Jones paid for to the tune of $100,000. Asked why she kept in touch, she said: "I was scared because I had already asked [A] if he wanted to go to the police" and "nothing with the bank was finalised". She feared Jones could withdraw the assistance, and "that was pretty frightening". Financial dependence: the gift that keeps on giving, right up until it doesn't.

The witness gave her first statement to police several years later, in May 2024. In December 2025, she found the note and handed it to the detective investigating A's case. The trial continues.