Jed Gordon, brother of Parkway Drive drummer Ben Gordon, was convicted and sentenced in Byron Bay Local Court today on an underage sex offence charge.
In March, Gordon – who also previously worked on the Australian band’s online merchandise team – pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with a person between 14 and 16 years old. Gordon is reported to have texted the girl in 2002 when he was 21 years old, and she was 15. The sexual contact continued through 2003. In 2021, the woman reportedly attempted to contact Gordon before contacting police in 2023.
In court documents obtained by Rolling Stone AU/NZ, Gordon was convicted and sentenced to a three-year Community Correction Order, starting today (May 28th) through to May 27th, 2029. He will be subject to supervision by a Community Corrections Officer at Lismore Community Corrections District Office and has been ordered to undertake 300 hours of community service work.
Per ABC, a victim impact statement presented to the court, the woman, now in her late 30s, said she had spent much of her life living with shame as a consequence of Gordon’s actions.
“The sexual and emotional abuse that he subjected me to has hindered my ability to navigate romantic, platonic, family and professional relationships,” it stated. “Because of this I have experienced re-victimisation in emotionally abusive relationships, domestic violence or sexual harassment, assault and rape multiple times.
“I have been unable to care and provide for my children in the capacity that they deserve, as well as being unable to care for myself.”
After releasing two written statements, Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall took to Instagram in late March to address the matter in a video.
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“We condemn this without hesitation,” McCall said.
“If there was anything in our initial response that left people wondering about that, I want to make this crystal clear for everyone: this is fucked. This is fucked, and this is Jed’s reckoning to answer for. It’s his reckoning and he will answer for it.We employed him for a long time and we put him in a position where he had contact with a lot of people and… that’s our moral responsibility to carry. That’s our moral responsibility to carry. We see it, and we hold it.
“To anyone that’s had bad interactions with Jed while employed with us, we’re so sorry. We’re so sorry.
“We knew he could be bad with people and our inaction on just that level is… there’s no excuse for that and we apologise. But we did not know the extent of his behaviour. We did not know… if our initial response came across as cold, I also want to say that was never the intent. We take this situation really, really seriously and we also recognise our position as this band – we’re a big band and we also have a connection, a family connection, and we did not want to do anything to jeopardise the justice system and we wanted to make sure we didn’t impede that. But we can definitely understand if people felt there was a coldness to our communication, and if that hurt someone, we see that.”
