Alan Jones was 13 when he left the family's tiny farm for Toowoomba Grammar. Boarding schools made him. In the rough-house of Toowoomba "a curious metamorphosis of a very gay male in a very straitjacket occurred. His high school years also turned the boy into a bully." Most of his twenties were spent at Brisbane Grammar, where Mr Jones is still remembered as inspiring but divisive. Parents were worried. There was no evidence of physical impropriety, but some of his favourites found themselves having to break free from intense attachments. At the age of 29, he put Brisbane behind him and came south to teach at Sydney's old and exclusive King's School. A character clash, inevitable from the beginning, makes Jones's years at King's one of the most talked-about episodes of a crowded life. His time at the Parramatta school is important because it delivered him influential connections that remained useful. It was important also because he entered an environment that was taken but not fooled. There were plenty of students and teachers at King's who saw through Alan and, in the end, managed to apply a kind of accountability not often seen since.

On the first Saturday of the school year King's held its Commemoration Day. Parents were invited along to inspect the school, meet the teachers and observe emerging talent. Everyone remembers Commemoration Day 1970, according to one of the minglers: "The whole school was flabbergasted." Resplendent in flared trousers and orange cravat Alan, unannounced, got to his feet and belted out a number from the West End musical Pickwick, If I Ruled the World. His choice of song still amuses. "His prayer, you might say," murmured one of those who would later clash with Jones. The aspiring tenor, who takes his singing seriously, was devastated when a few of the staff burst out laughing. The King's community had not waited long to experience their first Jones moment. 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.

Part of Spencer's support for Jones stemmed from a recognition that the law and understood values of the day lagged behind social reality. Jones's suspected homosexuality, in Spencer's view, did not make him a predator. Though now on shaky ground at King's, Jones became a hero to many at the school when his coaching delivered the long-desired football premiership. It was a personal triumph for Jones but some of the boys were cracking under the strain.

In his final year Scott Walker collapsed. The burden of training and studying and dealing with Alan had become too much. His relationship with Jones worsened when Scott became serious about a girl. Jones was splenetic, accusing his protege of wasting his time and his talent. A jealous Jones kept up the sniping, pressuring Scott to advance his athletics training, imposing the same "excessive demands" he had earlier opposed. Walker said some of the unhappiest moments of his entire life were when Jones openly ridiculed him on the football field. "We do not have a team, we have 14 players plus one," Alan spat, glaring at Scott. The storm finally broke in the unlikely firmament of an English literature class. A disagreement over one of the characters in Emma turned nasty. Walker saw the Mr Knightley character as complicated and contradictory, arguing the point with his teacher, who insisted Jane Austen's leading man was a paragon of virtue.

By now Walker had come to suspect that Jones was nervous about people who respected subtlety of thinking. He wondered whether his teacher had even read Emma. An offended Jones railed at Walker. The student retaliated with words not found in an Austen text. "Get f---ed," he told Jones, not for the first time. Walker was sent to the headmaster and did not return to Jones's class. The rift spilled over into his family. This time it was the mother who opposed Jones. Mrs Walker was also sick of him. But it was too late for Scott to change schools so he stayed on at King's.

For all that had been achieved on the sporting field, 1974 was the end of the road for Jones at King's. Stanley Kurrle, now retired for many years and conscious of ongoing speculation about the reasons for Jones's departure, explained that tension had risen to such a point that it seemed only a matter of time before a parent or parents brought a lawsuit against Jones and the school. "My concern was for him. He was a highly able, terribly energetic schoolmaster and I could see him hurting himself. We talked it over and I said I think it is in your interests that you should look elsewhere. I think he came to see that." As it was a term break there were only a few teachers around. Peter Fay, a new English teacher hired by Jones, was one of a rearguard of teachers who attempted to rally support to fight the termination. They found plenty of allies among students, ex-students and parents. Offers of financial and legal support came from well-connected families, and a plan was soon hatched to mount a legal challenge.

Jones's world at King's was crumbling. The final collapse occurred at a holiday home in Terrigal, where, over the telephone, Jones was persuaded by the school to forgo the fight and resign, or face the sack. Jones had lost a career and a kingdom. He had been around boarding schools for 20 years. For the best part of two decades fine young men surrounded him and fought for his favour.

What was revealed to those perceptive masters at King's was Jones's hold on his charges serving a deep need in himself. What they saw was a virus in search of a host. So what new kingdom could be found, where Alan Belford Jones might live his many lives through others? Part of the answer was: sport. In remaking his life after this low point, Jones took himself to Oxford; tried and failed to enter Parliament; wrote speeches for the prime minister, Malcolm Fraser; coached the Wallabies to international triumph and began his career on radio. By 1988 he was earning a fortune for himself and the Sydney station 2UE. Then came the London incident. The flat Jones turned up at in St James's Street, Mayfair, belonged to his friend Rene Rivkin. After dumping his luggage, he headed out again. "I thought I'll go for a walk, which is what people usually do when they come to London. I'd been walking for about 35 minutes. I just had light clothes on and it was very cold. I had this virtuous feeling that I was working the muck [of the flight] off me."

The six-block walk from Mayfair took him to Piccadilly Circus, where he crossed into familiar territory, the West End theatre district. He later explained he was going to have a look at the posters for a Jeffrey Archer play, Beyond Reasonable Doubt. This is where his public account of what happened came to an end. 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.

A friend later said by Jones to have provided "immeasurable" assistance was the man whose new play had drawn Jones to Soho. Jones came to know Lord Jeffrey Archer through the author's book promotion tours. It is easy to see how they would have got on as there are remarkable similarities. One year earlier Jeffrey Archer had been before a London court as the result of a sex scandal. He sued a British newspaper. The same high-order advocacy used by Archer was now made available to Jones. Archer's, and now Jones's solicitor, Lord Victor Mishcon, litigation consultant at the British legal firm Mishcon de Reya, was not a figure to be commonly found in a lowly magistrate's court.

It was dawn on a Tuesday when the story broke in Australia. First glimpses are commonly fleeting and newsrooms had only sketchy details of a high-profile Australian arrested on a morals charge. Alerted by bureau chief John Highfield, ABC London correspondent Peter Cave was concerned not just about identifying the right person, but the right Alan Jones. (Another prominent Australian sporting identity is the racing driver and 1980 Formula One champion Alan Jones.) When Cave found Alan's address he hurried to the Mayfair flat and knocked on the door. Although he thought he heard someone inside, the door stayed shut. Given the circumstances, the no-nonsense ex-serviceman doorman, who had seen Jones enter, became worried that he might have harmed himself. So he knocked again, and then used his keys to open the door to reveal an ashen Jones. Cave, recognising the former rugby coach, introduced himself and asked whether he wished to comment. Jones declined and closed the door. The concern about suicide was more keenly felt a world away at 2UE. Alan Jones's broadcasting colleague John Laws telephoned to offer comfort. Laws recalls Jones was so distressed he spoke about wanting to jump out the window. Station boss Nigel Milan was worried. John Brennan [the station's sport director] was put on the case, strings began to be pulled and, in the busy pre-Christmas period, airline seats found. Passengers were offloaded as Brennan, John Fordham [promoter] and Ross Turnbull [Australian Rugby Union and Liberal Party figure] found space on that afternoon's QF1 to London.

Before the case was heard the Crown withdrew the more serious charge, leaving the charge of committing an indecent act. This charge, to which Alan Jones pleaded not guilty and which would have attracted only a small fine, was to be held over until January. He left the court via a front entrance and was photographed by the assembled media. Barrister Stephen Reading told them: "Mr Jones is a man of good character. He is completely innocent of the charge against him. It will be opposed vigorously." Back in Australia there was a gradation of whispering. Within Alan's old school and rugby circles there were plenty of "I told you so" telephone calls. In the King's diaspora parents who had taken opposing positions on Alan Jones either ducked for cover or openly crowed.

Meanwhile, in London, the lawyers also gathered to contest the second charge of committing an indecent act. Before Christmas, the Crown decided to drop this charge as well. Alan Jones was free, of all but decade after decade of fervent speculation about what caused him to be charged over that London dunny, and how and why he got off. On the upper floors of the Ritz Hotel there was considerable relief: Jonesy wanted to party, booking rooms for [footballers] Brian Smith, Troy Coker and another friend, Sue Havers. Presents were handed out and the aqua Lacoste sweater, which had been in a bin, was souvenired.

The relief that flowed from the dropping of the charges did not stop him worrying about how the public and others would greet him. Alan Jones's self-belief could not accommodate shame. Back in Sydney he was reluctant to show his face. John Fordham had to push him out the door. Fordham encouraged Jones along to a big cricket testimonial where Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh and dozens of sporting luminaries made him feel welcome. Underlying much of the show of support was concern that a man should suffer so pointlessly.

The toilet episode was indeed a watershed for Alan Jones. On top of all the other evidence that might have led people to suspect Alan was homosexual, the London incident was going to strengthen, if not confirm, suspicion. An opportunity arose for him to admit his homosexuality. The generally sympathetic response made it easier for him to be himself. There was no need to confess to wrongdoing. It is not, nor should it be, a crime to be homosexual. It is not a sin to have your penis out in a public toilet. But having easily defeated the criminal charges, Jones sought to defeat common sense as well, by asking the rest of the world to join him in his denial. Jones's ratings didn't falter. A decade of uninterrupted triumphs followed on 2UE. In the 1990s he began to sign the deals that erupted in the great scandal of cash for comment. Perhaps London made him think he was invulnerable. So it proved. Despite the revelation that he had sold his opinions for millions, his audience stuck with him. But the "grey army" of his followers were never allowed to see the real Alan Jones.

Like a jockey caught in the stirrups, his audience is dragged over his hurdles of logic and around the many U-turns. Alan tells them Bob Carr is hopeless. He then tells them to vote for Bob Carr. He then tells them Carr is again hopeless. He promotes extremist tax schemes, attacking the treasurer, and then gets him on air and flatters him. The massive contrast between Alan Jones's professed honesty and his actual behaviour does not seem to matter. He was always good at fooling people willing to be fooled. And three to 4 hours of radio a day for all those years become such a blur. The truth is just more ephemera. As long as he keeps talking the inconsistencies are swept along in the sheer volume of verbiage: his editorials and opinions must now number in the tens of thousands.

Alan Jones supports democracy as long as it does what it is told. He wants laws that are strict but can be adjusted like bookmakers' odds. He wants commanding decisions and he wants process and consultation. He wants strong competition as long as it isn't too strong for local competition. He speaks up for the virtues of civilised debate while using words like weedkiller to wilt his opponents. And, of course, his opinion is not for hire. As long as there is conviction in your voice, you begin to convince yourself. As Alan Jones understood from his days at Toowoomba Grammar, what matters is being someone. What matters is who is talking, not what is said. Edited extracts from Jonestown by Chris Masters (Allen & Unwin, $49.95), published on Monday. *Italicised links by David Marr.