Alan Jones’s defence team has suggested his alleged victim was never groomed because “grooming is something that happens to young children”.

Complainant C was on Thursday cross-examined in a Sydney court over allegations the former 2GB star broadcaster touched him on the penis and kissed him when he worked for Jones as a young man.

The 85-year-old has pleaded not guilty to 20 indecent assault charges and two counts of sexual touching in relation to six men.

Years after he stopped working as Jones’s driver, C and the radio host continued to text each other, Downing Centre local court heard.

Following news Jones was stepping down from his role at 2GB in 2020, C said in a text message that he owed his career to the veteran broadcaster and that he had “only ever treated me with great decency” while his “generosity and kindness towards me has never wavered”.

The defence suggested he could have simply congratulated Jones and said nothing more, but C told the court he was “groomed to write in that manner”.

Defence barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC said: “Grooming is something that happens to young children … he never groomed you.”

C replied: “Grooming is a secretive behaviour that makes you feel you need to act in a certain way, and you are taught to act in a certain way.

“[The grooming] used to happen because he used to touch me on the penis.”

The former driver noted Jones was more than 40 years older than him when he started working for him in 2008 and held vastly more influence and power than a junior staffer.

“Sending a message like that is like paying tribute,” C said.

“If I didn’t, he wouldn’t have liked it. It would have blown back on me at some point in the future that I was ungrateful.”

Earlier in the week C explained other text messages to Jones with intimate and sexual content were the result of grooming. “These are messages consistent with someone who had been groomed for 10 years, to think this was an acceptable way to talk with him,” the complainant said on Tuesday.

It is the defence case that it is “inconsistent” that C would text Jones in an explicit manner if the defendant had indecently assaulted him.

Bashir, who signalled in her opening statement that the charges arose in part as a result of rivalry between Jones and fellow shock jock Ray Hadley, suggested to C that Hadley had been chasing Jones’s breakfast slot in 2019 when he put him in contact with a journalist.

Bashir said Jones was “under pressure” at the time C told Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter FitzSimons he had been indecently assaulted by his former boss.

C, who spoke to FitzSimons anonymously, told the court he did not want his story to be told at that time, nor did he want to be identified. He said he only wanted FitzSimons to know the behaviour the journalist was investigating was true.

Bashir asked if he was aware that Jones was under pressure at the time due to a social media campaign against the broadcaster by Mad Fucking Witches and a group called the Sleeping Giants, C said it was “because he said something stupid on air”.

He also said he never thought Jones and Hadley were rivals.

“I knew they didn’t like each other but the word ‘rivals’ is not a word I would have used,” he said.

In late 2019, Jones sent a text message to C saying, “I hope you can understand my profound disappointment at the treachery I have endured over the last 18 months”.

“Fortunately I know all the players … for you to be involved I find unbelievable.”

C interpreted the treachery to refer to a “beef” between Jones, Hadley and radio station management.

He said he had not made the allegations public at that time, and said if he had wanted to damage the broadcaster he could have made it public.

Bashir told the court in her opening “rivalry, treachery, double-dealing, money, hatred, desperation, opportunism and more are all at the heart of this case”.

The trial before judge Walsh continues.