Broadcaster faces gag order over sex offenders

Derryn Hinch has been silenced for breaching suppression orders by naming sex offenders. Photo / Getty Images

Outspoken broadcaster Derryn Hinch has been silenced as part of his sentence of five months' home detention for breaching suppression orders by naming sex offenders.

Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg said Hinch, 67, had taken the law into his own hands and has ordered that he cannot work or tweet during his period of five months' home detention.

Two weeks after undergoing a liver transplant, Hinch, who was born in New Plymouth and began his journalism career in New Zealand, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday to hear Rozencwajg impose special conditions as part of his sentence.

Rozencwajg ordered that the broadcaster must not engage in gainful employment, not communicate on Facebook, Twitter or other social media, not publish any material electronically, and not grant media interviews on his case.

The magistrate had earlier described Hinch's behaviour as deliberate and contemptuous.

"You took the law into your own hands," he said.

The website of the Herald Sun newspaper reported that a victims' advocate had vowed to continue Hinch's campaign to end the suppression of the names of sex offenders.

Noel McNamara, said the campaign to end the suppression of the names of sex offenders would go on.

"Derryn has been gagged for five months and I suppose in a way we're all in home detention with him," McNamara said.

"But the campaign will continue and we will press the Attorney-General to get rid of suppression orders where it is not identifying the victim."

The programme director of Fairfax Radio's 3AW, Clark Forbes, described Hinch's sentence, particularly aspects of it that stopped him from speaking publicly, as shattering for the broadcaster.

Hinch, who has been battling liver cancer, underwent a liver transplant two weeks ago and was released from Melbourne's Austin Hospital on Saturday.

He had asked the magistrate last month not to jail him, fearing he would not get to hospital in time to receive his transplant if he was in jail.

Rozencwajg had last month warned Hinch that if it were not for his ill-health, he would be going to jail.

Hinch admitted deliberately breaching suppression orders by naming two sex offenders in 2008, at a public rally and on his website, but told his pre-sentencing hearing that he believed he did so for the right reasons.

He was found guilty of breaching four suppression orders.

- AAP