An athlete who claims he was repeatedly indecently assaulted by Alan Jones denies he is fabricating the allegations for financial gain or trying to paint the veteran broadcaster in a sinister light.

The 85-year-old Jones is facing the first of many weeks of a marathon court hearing after he pleaded not guilty to 22 counts of indecent assault and sexual touching without consent.

Six men — who cannot be identified for legal reasons — allege Jones kissed, groped, or subjected them to sexual misconduct between 2003 and 2020 at locations across Sydney and the NSW Southern Highlands.

The first of the men to enter the witness box in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court recalled meeting Jones when he was about 14 years old and a rising athletics star.

The former athlete has accused Jones of indecently assaulting him on nine occasions with unwanted kisses and groping incidents as a teenager.

He spent days being grilled by Jones’ barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC under cross-examination that was initially blanketed with an interim court order prohibiting its publication.

Judge Glenn Walsh lifted the order on Thursday afternoon, allowing the publication of the at-times tense exchange.

Bashir variously accused the former athlete of lying, fabricating accounts, and conjuring up stories when giving his evidence, which he denied, arguing he had done his best to recall events.

The former athlete described Jones telling him to slow down while he was driving them to the NSW Southern Highlands before groping his genitals, leaving him feeling trapped.

”That is a manufactured account of a conversation,” Bashir charged.

”It’s all true,” the athlete retorted.

He initially told the court Jones had touched his groin and then dozed off before returning for another touch, but admitted it had been a false memory on Thursday.

”Was it a false memory that you were having when you gave that evidence or just telling a lie?” Bashir asked.

”I haven’t lied, I’m not prepared to lie,” he replied.

The former athlete initially told the court Jones had given him a phone weeks after they met and then a car when he was 17, but on Wednesday accepted evidence showed he had been 18 or older.

He had also put his age at 17 when Jones first allegedly indecently assaulted him in a Chinese restaurant but later realised he had finished school at the time.

The athlete rejected suggestions from Bashir that he tried to paint Jones in a certain light or ”fit a schoolboy narrative of sexual touching”.

He told the court he was sure about his recollection of the indecent assaults at the hands of Jones but less sure about the timeline, given the intervening two decades.

The complainant recalled Jones saying he would increase his weekly payments because he had been ”such a good boy” after an indecent assault, but couldn’t situate the comments in time.

After a lengthy grilling, he accepted stipend increases had nothing to do with Jones saying he had been a good boy.

Bashir accused him of trying to assert Jones had an ulterior motive for making the payments and recasting them as ”something sinister”.

”Absolutely not,” the athlete retorted.

At one point, the court was told he had only 23 cents in his bank account before a timely payment from Jones.

The athlete revealed he had lost his job and was struggling to make ends meet in the months before Jones was arrested in 2024, years after the payments ceased.

But he repeatedly denied Bashir’s suggestions that he had seen the former radio host’s arrest as an opportunity to extract money from Jones.

”I don’t want anything other than proper justice from this matter,” the athlete said.

Jones has been charged with nine indecent assault offences against the witness, all of which he denies.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

-AAP