What happened between incoming Senator Derryn Hinch and the teen model he met at Molly Meldrum’s place?

THERE’S one thing Derryn Hinch’s critics want to talk about before he joins the Senate. It’s about that teen model he met in 1979.

Derryn Hinch has clarified the details of a decades-old tryst with a young model.

HE CALLS it his “most reckless, sexual story”.

But the 1979 tryst with a teen model he met at Molly Meldrum’s place caused a big headache for the Human Headline.

Decades of boozing take their toll on the human memory, and when incoming Senator Derryn Hinch sat down to write his 2004 autobiography, some key details were bungled.

The broadcaster and political crusader, whose election campaign rested on the fight to establish a national public register of child sex offenders, got confused about the age of an unnamed lingerie model he hooked up with when he was in his thirties.

His supporters, who deftly unrolled the world’s longest Senate voting form to smooth his path to power, have backed Hinch’s quest to “protect those innocent children from the dirty scum” of paedophilia. However, some detractors have sought to resurrect the incident raised in his book, which contains an incorrect description of a young woman’s age.

Hinch is pictured at a rally on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House calling for a national sex offenders register in 2014. Picture: Tony Gough

THE TEEN LINGERIE MODEL

The year was 1979, or thereabouts. A hard living, womanising Hinch, then aged about 35, was letting loose at one of Molly Meldrum’s famously wild parties.

While boozing it up with the who’s who of Melbourne’s entertainment scene, the broadcaster crossed paths with “a stupendously beautiful young model”, he recounted in his 2004 memoir The Fall and Rise of Derryn Hinch: How I Hit the Wall and Didn’t Bleed.

While he “did not get this exquisite Swiss woman that night”, Hinch made clear that he wanted to spend time with her.

Then comes the part of the book that caused controversy, in a passage the broadcaster would later clarify as being untrue.

Hinch circa 1979.

“Days later, she and I went to dinner at Catta’s restaurant in Exhibition St,” he wrote.

“We were chatting. I put her lack of knowledge about many things down to the fact that English was her new language and she had only been in Australia for a short time.”

But when his mention of Hollywood actor Warren Beatty’s name drew a blank stare, Hinch wrote, he asked his dining companion: “How old are you?” To which, he said, she replied: “I’m nearly sixteen”, before narrowing it down to “fifteen years and four months”.

Hinch believed this version of the incident until the woman in question contacted him on social media, decades after it happened. He even spoke about it on his 3AW Drive show, prompting a scathing column by the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt.

But the ravages of time and alcohol abuse take their toll on the human memory, and the broadcaster cleared the matter up in a post on his blog three years ago.

Hinch is pictured with the diary he kept while in jail for naming and shaming child sex offenders in contempt of court.

‘DO YOUR SUMS’

“About 10 years ago, in my book, The Fall and Rise of Derryn Hinch, I admitted that in my thirties I had had sex with a 15-year-old girl,” Hinch wrote in his 2013 clarification.

“I repeated the admission on 3AW and Andrew Bolt demanded I should be prosecuted.

“In the book, I explained how a man could make a dreadful mistake: That she was a model, featured in fashion and lingerie ads in magazines like Vogue and Women’s Weekly, I met her about 3am at a party at Molly Meldrum’s, thought she was about 25, and we later went to dinner.

“When I discovered her age I never saw her again. And our paths had never crossed in more than 30 years.”

In recent times, he wrote, “that has led to my being called a paedophile, a child rapist and the girl’s age has dropped to 14”.

Then in a “genuine blast from the past”, the former model got in touch.

“We have since met and had lunch. She chided my poor memory,” Hinch wrote.

“‘You had just started at 3AW, so it was 1979. I was born in 1961. Do your sums. I was 18,’” he quoted her as saying.

Hinch concluded that the woman had been 17-and-a-half at the time, but “certainly not 15”.

AGE OF CONSENT

The teen model’s age is not the only part of the tale that Hinch seems to have muddled in his book.

He recounted a conversation with a colleague about the legal age of “carnal knowledge” in the state of Victoria.

Upon being told that it was “sixteen for her if he’s under eighteen but it’s eighteen if he’s over twenty-one”, Hinch recalled responding: “It’s to save girls like X from people like you and me,” concluding: “Lucky escape. My career would have been ruined.”

But there was no such rule in Victoria at the time; the age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16, and had remained unchanged since 1950.

Either his colleague was wrong, or this was another failure of his memory.

Derryn Hinch celebrates his Senate seat win at Riva in St Kilda. Picture: David Geraghty

THE FALL AND RISE

As far as biographies go, The Fall and Rise of Derryn Hinch is equal parts swagger and condemnation.

It’s peppered with details of Hinch’s many sexual conquests, along with war stories from his tireless crusade against paedophiles.

The teen lingerie model account follows the anecdote of a police raid at Hinch’s rental apartment in Augusta, Georgia, where he was covering the US Masters golf tournament.

As he recalls it, Hinch “got innocently involved with three prostitutes” whom he invited home from the bar.

Other parts of Hinch’s book admit to his imperfect recollection, such as this bar fight scene: “My memory version is that I delivered a huge John Wayne right-hander from somewhere close to the floor. Not true. I actually popped him right on the nose with a punch that did not travel more than three inches ... I know because there were flecks of his blood on both my shirt cuffs.”

The brawl, of course, was over a woman — American model Carol Hobbs — and ended with the pair going back to Hinch’s place for “cave man” sex.

Hinch plans to use his Senate seat to fight for a national register of child sex offenders. Picture: Scott Barbour

But much of the book is devoted to the quest that has become a lifelong calling.

A couple of dozen pages after the hooker scene, Hinch makes clear his strong views on child sex offenders and the need for tougher sentencing. He takes aim at former Governor-general Peter Hollingworth for his comments on the ABC about the 14-year-old sexual abuse victim of a 27-year-old Anglican priest.

The girl, Hinch wrote, “felt betrayed yet again” when Hollingworth “portrayed her as a seductress”.

“It wasn’t rape or sexual abuse or anything like that, he said. ‘Rather, it was the other way round’,” Hinch said, citing Hollingworth’s comments in a 2002 episode of Australian Story.

“No wonder victims often drift through life feeling that nobody cares.”

Hollingworth later apologised to the woman for his comments, both publicly and in a face-to-face meeting.

Now, with Hinch tipped to take Ricky Muir’s spot in the Senate, he could finally get the chance to push his law reform agenda forward.

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Originally published as What happened between incoming Senator Derryn Hinch and the teen model he met at Molly Meldrum’s place?