Derryn Hinch

Derryn Hinch is at it again, naming a convicted paedophile, and this time complicating matters by also naming his victim. He claims he had her permission, she claims he did not. It’s messy.

It’s a habit of Hinch’s which has seen him jailed, subjected to house arrest, and even go all the way to the High Court. Aside from his health battles, defying suppression orders on sex offenders is the thing he’s most famous for.

On Monday during his Melbourne radio program Hinch named a Sydney property developer, convicted of sexually assaulting his then-11-year-old daughter. She’s now in her 30s. It’s easy for this to be dismissed as Hinch at it again, except this has happened very quickly after a major Victorian review into child safety that recommended suppression orders on the names of convicted child sex offenders be scrapped.

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The biggest slap in my five months of house arrest came not at the start when the magistrate said he wanted to make it “as much like jail” as he could. It came only days from the end, at the hands of an elderly hospital volunteer, on one of my rare excursions into the real world.

As I walked into the foyer of the Austin Hospital for a check-up to see how my newly transplanted liver was behaving, the beaming, bespectacled old-timer asked how I was doing.

I said: “I feel great. Only 12 more days and I’m out of jail.” His mocking, condescending reply: “You weren’t in jail.” I felt like saying: “You try it, sunshine.”

Continue reading "The Human Headline:  Ungagged and unbowed" »