Excepts from Chris masters' article published in the SMH in 2006.
Link:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-demons-that-drive-alan-jones-20061021-gdone7.html
In Margaret Thatcher's Britain, the police had been urged to be more vigilant about "cottaging", the liaising of homosexuals in public toilets. To the cops, protection of underage males was seen as legitimate work, but there were mixed views about the legitimacy of targeting homosexuals. So it was not always popular work with the young police who were usually assigned to this area.
To make it more interesting, the West End branch had begun an informal competition: because the occasional judge or politician was caught in their net, who paid for drinks at the end of the week rested on whose catch was the biggest. Later that day the word went breathlessly around the station that one team had caught Australia's future prime minister.
Two plain-clothes officers had been watching the underground public toilet at Broadwick Street from the roof and a nearby corner. They had seen a man in an aqua-coloured Lacoste sweater enter the toilet and became suspicious when he stayed inside for a longer than usual period.
Jones was arrested and taken to the Mayfair station, where he was charged with "outraging public decency" and "committing an indecent act". It is only fair to point out that prosecuting authorities were ultimately unprepared to present any evidence to support the charges.
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At the age of 29, he put Brisbane behind him and came south to teach at Sydney's old and exclusive King's School.
...
By 1973 Alan's impassioned support of some and lack of empathy for others became too great an issue to be ignored. There was deepening anxiety about continued late-night excursions to Jones's room. Chris Simkin was often in the room with Alan until late at night. "I was in there for hours. The door was never locked." Simkin says they used to watch The Ernie Sigley Show on television.
Scott Walker, another constant visitor, began to feel violated. "If you had muscle strain he would insist on strapping your legs. He would take you into the shower and tell you to take your clothes off. I was shattered with awkwardness. It was weird and uncomfortable and seemed voyeuristic."
Housemate Brian Porter says: "I never saw a breach of fiduciary duty. I never saw evidence of predatory behaviour. But he was manipulative and voyeuristic. He would love watching athletes on television and film. He saw the beauty of the human form in full flight. He loved the strength, the freshness and the vitality of boys."
Disquiet about Jones's attachment to some boys grew during a term break when one of the masters found a letter, written by Jones to a boy, that had been left behind in a classroom desk. In it Alan spoke of thinking about the boy late at night, expressing his love. While love letters to boys were hardly appropriate, neither were they regarded as smoking gun evidence of misbehaviour.
The innocent explanation was that Jones's letters were Byronesque exhortations of love and inspiration. Jones has spoken of his belief that males should not feel ashamed of expressing love for one another. "You mean so much to me," one boy remembers him saying when Jones drove him home. The English teacher often made a feature of his sensitivity, telling boys he was too affected by human suffering to teach history.
Nevertheless the discovery of the correspondence was one more reason to be shot of Jones. The majority of the housemasters penned a letter of their own. Addressed to headmaster Stanley Kurrle, the letter spoke emphatically of concern about Jones's influence and control over some boys, describing it as "bad, very bad". To these masters Jones had become a baleful presence, to one an Alcibiades, a charismatic and devious peddler of loyalty.
The question of when, even whether, the letter actually arrived on Stanley Kurrle's desk is disputed or lost to memory. Kurrle is unsure about the letter, well remembered by others, including one who refused to sign it. Peter Spencer, who also lived in Broughton House at King's, defended Jones and was not alone in seeing his colleague as subject to victimisation and jealousy.
He seemed to be quite taken by at least some of the boys in his charge, a question being whether or not it crossed into matters internally untoward.
I do not find letters appropriate or helpful to a boy, let alone one at boarding school, notwithstanding any emotional gratification they provided for Alan at the time.
Certainly a misjudgment.
Having said that, I agree with him that his sexual preferences are his own affair entirely.
As it was for Ian Roberts (playing for Manly that day) whom I saw and heard being vilified by a fan until our loudmouth was struck firmly in the head by a gentlemen with an opposing view. Ian studiously ignored the fracas.
Generally, I find the frequenting of public toilets for sexual acts is somewhat distasteful and can be bit of a nuisance.
If the authorities wanted to build special “ AJ” blocks closeby, I wouldn’t have any issues.
I heard what happened in that toilet block he visited from a good source, that the wonderful Chris Masters probably knows, but is not revealing. No pikelet was harmed.
