Conviction of Aussie band's 'sixth member' reveals Byron Bay's dark side

Women reveal Byron Bay's predatory 2000s culture of rape, humiliation and shame Mon 1 Jun 2026 at 6:01am The girl in the photo is smiling for the camera, her hair in a side ponytail, a trucker cap on her head. In another snap, she looks into the distance, standing in front of a stretch of palm trees with fronds glossy and green from the damp air of Byron Bay. It is the sort of photoshoot familiar to many girls who grew up in the early 2000s, when digital cameras, mobile phones and the internet were still fresh and exciting. Warning: This story contains references to sexual abuse and degradation. The teenage girl's name is Rachel Kila. She was 15 when she received a text from someone who had spotted her around town. "Hey, I've seen you around, I think you are cute, we should meet up some time xjedx," the text read, according to agreed facts filed in the Byron Bay Local Court. Jed Daniel Gordon, then 21, met with the teenager in December 2002. He invited her for a drive, and they had sex in the back of his car — the start of months-long sexual abuse that has had a decades-long impact on Ms Kila's life. "I always felt like it wasn't right, but I blamed myself for that,"Ms Kila said. "The facts are that he was an adult, and I was still a child." Ms Kila has waived her right to anonymity to speak out against the culture she grew up in — one in which it became normalised for older boys and men to groom and have sex with girls in their early teens then publicly humiliate them. She is one of 35 people to speak to the ABC about the experiences of young girls in Byron Bay in the early 2000s — a time when the town's hardcore music scene started to rise. Fifteen women have alleged to the ABC they were raped or sexually assaulted by older boys or adult men when they were as young as 12, and seven said they were in "relationships" with older boys or adult men in their early teens. Some of the women described being sprayed with urine, faeces and semen, and being spied on during sex, part of a culture of public degradation they said was pervasive in the popular tourist resort town. "The place was gorgeous, paradise, and yet this is what it was like underneath," one woman, Jessica Hayhoe, said. "We were prey." At least three women said they left school early because of their experiences and many described issues with relationships, intimacy and drugs and alcohol because of the men's behaviour. "It was like Puberty Blues on steroids," one woman said. Another woman said: "Every single one of my friends made it to their 18th birthday with at least two stories of being assaulted." 'It just seemed to be the thing that happened' Ms Kila reported Gordon to NSW Police in 2021 after her daughter turned 15. "When I look at a 15-year-old, I think you can't be choosing to engage in a relationship with an adult," she said. She also knew she was not alone. NSW Police recorded a phone call between Ms Kila and Gordon in 2025 in which he said he "wasn't the only one hooking up with people". Speaking about their encounters, Gordon said: "I may have been one of the ones who did it the most so I am probably, um deserving of being, you know, of having people be angry at me, but I haven't had anyone else reach out over the years and I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just a f***in' surf dude." Ms Kila, now 38, said she believed she had been targeted by Gordon because she was vulnerable, and said their encounters had a dramatic impact on her life — harming her mental and physical health, her relationships, and her ability to maintain stable work, housing and relationships. Gordon was sentenced to a three-year community corrections order, 300 hours of community service and placed on the child protection register for his offending against Ms Kila at a hearing in Byron Bay Local Court last week. Speaking outside court, Gordon's lawyer, John Weller, described his offending as "at the lower end of the scale", and said the court accepted he had taken responsibility and was remorseful. "He's a person of good character in every other respect," Mr Weller said. Ms Kila said she had now chosen to speak publicly to pave the way for other women to seek accountability and heal. "Justice for me is actually hearing other people say that they were able to come forward and get some closure," she said. 'We've been completely blindsided' Reporting Gordon was not easy. He was once jokingly described as the sixth member of ARIA award-winning hardcore band Parkway Drive, which formed in the Gordon family home in Ewingsdale, near Byron Bay, in 2003. Women who spoke to the ABC — several of whom made additional allegations against Gordon — said he went on to benefit from his proximity to the band, whose association gave him legitimacy and access to young fans through all-ages shows. Gordon, the brother of drummer Ben Gordon, once had a business card that listed his title as Parkway Drive "tour manager/merch dude" and read: "We should hang out later, your [sic] cute!" He also heavily featured in a 2009 documentary on the band in which he was described by I Killed the Prom Queen vocalist Michael Crafter as "the most f***ed up human ever to grace the planet". In a video uploaded online in March after Gordon's guilty plea was made public, Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall said the group supported the complainant "100 per cent". "We knew [Gordon] could be bad with people and our inaction on just that level, there's no excuse for that and we apologise, but we did not know the extent of his behaviour," McCall said. "We did not know. We've been completely blindsided by this." But women who spoke to the ABC said it was implausible at least some members of Parkway Drive did not know Gordon's reputation as a man who pursued young girls for sex. Melbourne woman Siobhan Daysh dated Gordon briefly when she was 17 and said she quickly received warnings from other girls about "what Jed was really like". "[A] nickname he had was Ped Gordon," Ms Daysh said. "His preferences for very young girls were pretty well known." Two women shared their teenage diaries with the ABC. One woman's diary, written when she was 14, detailed a sexual encounter in Gordon's car when he was 21. " … he sed 2 call him tomorrow since he is 2 scared 2 call me cus of my mum," the girl wrote in the 2002 entry. The second woman's diary, written in 2005 when she was 15, referenced an MSN conversation with Gordon, then 24. "He's so weird and gross … he's like I hear you have a boyfriend now, I'm like yeh …he's like 'oh to bad for me, cause I'm in love with you again'," she wrote. The woman alleged Gordon had previously been sexual with her. Ms Daysh said she was angry when she saw Parkway Drive's public statements on the case. "To say that they didn't know … all it was going to do is silence the girls and the women who need to come forward and feel safe to do so," she said. Ms Kila said she felt "gaslit" when she saw the band's social media posts. Parkway Drive declined to comment further on its association with Gordon except to say: "We reiterate our shock and distress about this situation." Mr Weller, Gordon's lawyer, was last week asked about additional allegations against his client. "Well, they're rubbish as far as I'm concerned," he said. It is understood NSW Police is investigating further allegations against Gordon. Ms Daysh told women who wanted to speak out they would be supported. "If you do choose to come forward, just know there are so many people who have your back," she said. 'Just ruined me' The people who spoke to the ABC said Gordon was not the only adult man in Byron who pursued girls in their early teens. And while hardcore was the epicentre of youth culture at that time, they said predatory conduct was not confined to the music scene. Jessica Hayhoe described losing her virginity at 13 to a 17-year-old. She alleged she was twice raped in her early teens and said the second incident fundamentally changed her life. "That, for me, just ruined me," she said. "I still have really bad anxiety. It just changed my personality completely." The woman was not alone in describing how even sex that she wanted to have could become a source of humiliation. "You'd be having consensual sex and not realise all of their friends were outside watching through a window and making fun of you." There were other forms of shaming. The ABC has obtained rap songs produced by Parkway Drive bassist Jia O'Connor, recorded before he was in the hardcore band, in which men make highly derogatory comments about individual teen girls and rap about perpetrating rape. One track makes reference to a 24-year-old "breaking the hymen" of 12-year-olds. In the same song, one person raps about a peer: "He's probably tried to rape you or one of your friends." In a statement, O'Connor said he was deeply ashamed of "some of the songs", which he said were written and performed by "insecure teenagers" mimicking "the hateful lyrics of Eminem and NWA without realising the consequences". "In fact, many songs were never meant to be published, but some of the worst songs were leaked and ended up hurting people," O'Connor said. "While it was a toxic culture for boys, it was so much worse for girls, and I am deeply sorry for contributing to that." Humiliation used to silence girls Girls who said they were pressured into sending naked photos would sometimes find their images uploaded on internet forums as an act of revenge or humiliation. Degradation through a game called the points system — in which men received a point for sleeping with a girl, then shared their tally by shouting "one point" when they saw them again in public — was also repeatedly referenced. "They would rape minors then make you ashamed for it," said another woman who grew up in Byron, who asked to be known by her first name, Lara. Several women who spoke with the ABC alleged they were sprayed with urine, faeces, and, in one case, waterbombs containing semen. It was a known problem at the time: a 2006 article published in the Byron Shire Echo shone a light on the degradation of young girls in the town's "sexual culture", including "stories of girls being urinated and defecated on". In 2006, Ms Daysh was part of a group who organised girls' night in events at the local youth centre for young girls to learn about healthy relationships and consent. She said word got around town she was involved in helping coordinate the get-togethers. "There was a night in town where a group of men surrounded me in the street and, you know, insults, harassment, that sort of thing," Ms Daysh said. "They were holding water pistols which they started spraying me from head to toe. Then they all sort of left and a few people came up to me and said that wasn't water, that was urine. I smelled my clothes and yep, it definitely wasn't water." Byron's elevated rate of reported assaults Statistics help back up the women's accounts of their teen years. Data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) collated for the ABC found the reported rate of young female victims of sexual assault in the Byron Shire local government area was close to double the NSW average between 2005 and 2007. BOCSAR said the data — based on rate per 100,000 people — was influenced by the relatively small number of incidents. The 2025 figure for the Byron local government area was about on par with the state average. The women who spoke to the ABC said they have spent years trying to understand what it was about Byron Bay at that time that meant predatory, illegal conduct seemed to become the norm. Many hypothesised that the combination of male-dominated surf and hardcore cultures, the spotlight on Byron Bay through hardcore music's rise and a perceived lack of consequences was to blame. Parkway Drive, in its statement to the ABC, pointed to the town's then-high unemployment rate and issues with alcohol, drugs and violence. "Behaviours like power imbalances, consent issues, bullying were everywhere: in homes and in the streets, and girls and women did bear the brunt of it," the band said. "It's heartbreaking and unacceptable." 'A serious cultural problem' Women said they did not have the language at that time to call out what was happening as wrong. Debra Hayhoe, Jessica's mother, said the girls referred to it as "shit happens". "'You go out, get drunk, and boys do things to you'," she remembered girls explaining at the time. Queensland University of Technology masculinity expert Michael Flood said there were some contexts in which it was more likely that men would sexually assault women, such as gender segregated subcultures. But he said damaging attitudes and behaviours were not confined to one subculture and continued today. "Violent supportive norms which feed into violence and domestic violence are relatively common, and they're more common among young men than young women,"Professor Flood said. When news of Gordon's guilty plea broke, some social media commentary dismissed the crime as decades old. All the women who spoke to the ABC said the passage of time was irrelevant while the legacy of the behaviours remained. For them, Gordon's conviction has marked a turning point; the beginning of what they hope will be accountability for the harms caused. To other women, Ms Kila said: "You don't have to let shame run your life any more. "I hope that you find healing and justice. You didn't do anything wrong, even if it feels like you did. You didn't."