POLICE CHARGE HINCH

Six months I launched a campaign to have a law overturned. A law which thousands of people think is a bad law. A piece of legislation called an Extended Supervision Order. On the surface it sounds good for the community. Sounds like it is protecting the community. Extending the supervision of serial rapists and recidivist paedophiles after they leave jail.  It’s not good. It’s bad. It actually helps sex offenders hide their identities after they are released back into society.

I said at the time: Murderers don’t get their names suppressed when they complete their sentence and leave jail. Why should rapists of women and children?

Why legally protect the identities of men who fantasized about building a prison farm where they would molest the attractive children and use the others as slaves?
Why protect the identity of a man whose wife held a child down while the husband raped the boy?
Back then I circulated a petition on the Internet called Name Them and Shame Them and 7000 of you signed that petition from all states in Australia and from overseas.
The petition simply said: WE, the undersigned, demand the Victorian Parliament change the laws so that a judge or magistrate cannot suppress the identity of a serious sex offender unless such identification will also identify a victim.

And we had a rally on the steps of Parliament House.

There was a postscript today concerning that law and my campaign to have it repealed. A short time ago I was advised I would be served a summons today to appear in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court on five criminal charges for allegedly breaching County Court suppression orders by identifying two offenders at that public rally and on my website.

If convicted those penalties provide for fines in excess of $12,000 on each charge and up to 12 months in jail.

I’ve been asked for a lot of comments from journalists today. Did I think I was morally and legally in the right. My answer? I know I was morally right. Whether or not I was legally right is for the courts to decide. And that’s the way it should be.

I have been careful today in what I have said, both on air and off air. The last thing I want, or need, is to scandalize or insult the court before I get there.

I have done what I believe I had to do. The court will now do its job. As it should. And it will.                                                        

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008