Sydney radio broadcaster Ray Hadley has savaged his former 2GB colleague Alan Jones after he defended a man charged with hitting a police horse and suggested a Brazilian woman didn’t die of Covid.
Hadley, who had worked with Jones for more than three decades at both 2GB and 2UE, said he had observed ‘strange behaviour’ over many years being at the same radio stations.
On Sky News on Monday night, Jones spoke up for Kristian Pulkownik, one of 63 people charged for protesting on Saturday against Sydney’s lockdowns in defiance of a public health order.
Pulkownik, who failed to appear in court on Tuesday, was charged with affray, animal cruelty, joining in an illegal assembly and not complying with a Covid-19 health directive, after he was filmed touching the face of Tobruk, a police horse.
Jones argued the man he was simply trying to stop the animal running into him.
‘In the video, you can see the horse turn around and all this 33-year-old tried to do was to stop the horse from turning on him so he put his hand up as any of us would,’ he said.
‘For that, and what you see, he’s been charged with animal cruelty.’
Sydney radio broadcaster Ray Hadley (pictured) has accused his former 2GB colleague Alan Jones of supporting violent anti-lockdowns protests after he defended a man charged with hitting a police horse
Jones spoke up for Kristian Pulkownik (pictured), who was charged with affray, animal cruelty, joining in an illegal assembly and not complying with a Covid-19 health directive, after he was filmed touching the face of Tobruk, a police horse
Jones also mocked Premier Gladys Berejiklian for promising the full force of the law would be brought against the rioters who defied a public health order.
‘This is what you get as part of disproportionate responses to the coronavirus issue,’ he said.
‘I feel sorry for the police and the horses: they’ve been sooled on to the people by the Berejiklian Government.’
Hadley cited Monday night’s Sky News broadcast to accuse Jones of supporting the violent protests in Sydney’s city centre.
‘He needs to be called out for last night’s program,’ he said.
‘He supported the violence and the protest on Saturday citing the New South Wales lockdown laws and the Berejiklian Government as to blame for what happened.’
Hadley said Jones’s defence of the man who allegedly attacked the police horse ‘was beyond belief’.
‘On Sky News, every night Alan Jones is an apologist for these thugs,’ he said.
Alan Jones (pictured) argued the man he was simply trying to stop the animal running into him and accused Premier Gladys Berejikian of ‘sooling’ police horses on to people
On his program, Jones also bizarrely asked Pulkownik’s defence lawyer, Tony Nikolic, if a healthy 38-year-old Brazilian woman Adriana Midori Takara’s death on Sunday morning was really from Covid.
The Sky News presenter claimed there was a conspiracy to pronounce a certain cause of death, for political purposes, because no autopsy had to be conducted at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where the woman died, because the Australian Bureau of Statistics didn’t require this to compile coronavirus fatalities.
‘All the stories say dead from coronavirus at 38. Are you aware, as a lawyer, that the national Covid guidelines and the ABS suggest that no autopsy has to be performed because declaring a Covid death?,’ Jones said.
‘It’s highly unlikely to be a Covid death.’
On his program, Jones bizarrely asked a defence lawyer if a healthy 38-year-old Brazilian woman Adriana Midori Takara’s (pictured) death was really from Covid, considering no autopsy had to be conducted at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics guidelines on coronavirus fatalities
This angered Hadley.
‘This is very, very insulting for the family,’ he said.
Hadley worked alongside Jones at 2GB from 2002 to 2020, after previously being broadcasters at 2UE since the mid-1980s.
He accused him of giving a platform to anti-vaxxers like Pete Evans, a TV celebrity chef with fringe views.
‘As you know, I’ve observed Mr Jones very closely for 35 years,’ he said.
‘I’ve seen some of his strange behaviour and I do mean strange behaviour in the past.’
WSFM breakfast presenter Amanda Keller also accused Jones of ‘whipping up’ Sydney’s anti-lockdown riots, along with Hadley’s 2GB colleague Ben Fordham, who replaced Jones in breakfast last year.