JONES BATTLES TEARS IN LEGAL ROW

ALAN Jones has fought back tears as he talked about the people who died in the Queensland floods at Grantham in 2011.

The radio broadcaster entered the witness box in the Brisbane Supreme Court yesterday to give evidence in the judge-only defamation trial.

The Toowoomba-based Wagner brothers are suing Jones, Harbour Radio, 4BC and journalist Nick Cater for 32 broadcasts in 2014 and 2015.

John, Denis, Neill and Joe allege they were accused of the deaths of 12 people in the town of Grantham during the 2011 floods, when one of the walls of the Lockyer Valley quarry they owned collapsed.

Jones choked back tears as he recalled the stories of the people who died at Grantham

“There was a whole heap of people who got in touch with me,” he said. Jones gave evidence they all said the same thing: the wall – or bund – around the quarry was manmade.

“The Wagners kept on saying there was no bund ... whereas every eyewitness gave evidence that they’d seen this bund going up and up and up,” he told the court.

When asked by his barrister, Robert Anderson QC, if the comments he made about the family on air were “opinions honestly held” by him, Jones said they were.

The trial continues.