Give us a Hinch and he'll attract the vile - with hilarious results

His reputation took a battering when he dubiously claimed televisual icon and closet man-lover Graham Kennedy died of complications caused by AIDS, and when he later declared motor racing legend Peter Brock to be a wifebeater within days of the nine-time Bathurst 1000 winner's death last year.

And that was after he earned the scorn and derision of his 3AW colleagues for quite correctly revealing that sports announcer and Victorian cricket coach David Hookes was seeing another woman when a bouncer fatally punched him outside a Melbourne pub.

This somewhat embarrassed all his broadcast mates, who had painted Hookes as an innocent family man of great virtue who was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But Hinch has a special placce in my heart for sprays like this against gangster's moll Wendy Peirce.

She now admits she provided a false alibi for her late hubby, Victor, who was found innocent with three others over the ambush murder police constables Steven Tynan and Damien Eyre in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra in 1988.

Peirce himself got his just desserts in 2002 when he was shot in his car in Bay Street Port Melbourne, reportedly by Andrew Veniamin, who himself died on the wrong end of Mick Gatto's revolver (in an act of self defence, thanks lawyers) at a Carlton restaurant less than two years later.

But it was revealed at the weekend that Victor and Wendy's four kids have received crime victims compensation for his murder.

This, for the children of a bloke who Wendy Peirce now admits killed Tynan and Eyre, was a major player in the gangland war and peddled drugs around murder for decades as part of the infamous Pettingill clan.

Derryn launched into a typically tough editorial on his AW show today condemning the compensation cheque for the Peirce kids, then intervuiewed Victoria's Shadow Attorney-General on the matter when, at 5.35 or so into the recording, Wendy Peirce phoned in to defend herself.

The result is radio gold. As Molly Meldrum might say, "Do yourself a favour and ... arrrhhh ... check it out".