Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall has issued a video statement after it was revealed that the person who has pleaded guilty to an underage sex offence and was previously associated with the band is the brother of their drummer.
Jed “Chode” Gordon, brother of Ben Gordon, pleaded guilty last week 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.
After releasing two written statements in recent days, McCall took to Instagram on Tuesday night to address the matter in a video.
“We support the victim 100%,” McCall said.
“She deserves justice. She deserves her space, she deserves her time, she deserves to be heard. We 100% support that. 20 years of trauma… I cannot imagine what that is like to bear.
“We condemn this without hesitation. 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.
“We’ve always tried to see the best in people and… sometimes that means you’re blind to the worst.”
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McCall claimed that the Byron Bay band only learned about Gordon’s wrongdoings after seeing screenshots of court dates online, and through the Sydney Morning Herald article published on Monday.
“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.”
Though Parkway Drive confirmed that Gordon has recently filled orders as part of their online merchandise team, they said his contract was terminated when they became aware of the incident.
Gordon has been released on bail and will face sentencing on May 19th.
