Welcome to 3AW. Skip directly to: Search Box, Section Navigation, Content.

3AW - Fairfax Radio Network

Thursday February 23, 2012

What we're talking about

Coroner won't re-open Walsh St. file

Posted by: Derryn Hinch | 25 January, 2012 - 3:54 PM
Wendy Peirce

I drove down Walsh Street, South Yarra, this morning. And, as always happens, when I take that route, I thought of two young policemen, who lost their lives in a brutal and cowardly ambush early one morning in October 1988.

Constables Steven Tynan and Damien Eyre were doing another patrol car a favour when they answered a call to check out an abandoned car just before dawn.

They were lured to their deaths because the previous day Police had shot and killed Victor Peirce's best friend, Graeme Jensen, in controversial circumstances. Peirce vowed it was war: "For every one of ours they kill, we'll kill two of theirs." Thirteen hours later Constables Tynan and Eyre were dead.

You still can't listen to the recording of their fresh young voices on the Police radio as they took the last job of their short lives without feeling teary. God knows how their families cope when those fateful minutes are brought back in documentaries or cop shows or movies like Animal Kingdom. It all came up again in the Andrew Fraser series Killing Time on Foxtel last year.

As you know, four men were charged with the Walsh Street murders. And four men walked free. They were acquitted, to put it bluntly, because the prosecutors stuffed it up. It all went pear-shaped when their prime witness, that gangster's moll, Wendy Peirce, played them for mugs.

At first, she turned on the leader of the Walsh Street killers – her husband Victor Peirce.

She demolished his alibi that he had spent that night with her in a Tullamarine motel. Wendy Peirce was put in protective custody, which cost taxpayers about two million dollars.

She was mollycoddled, reportedly seduced one of her guards. She made video statements implicating her husband. And then she reneged. When called as a witness at her husband's committal hearing she changed her mind. She was not called as a witness at the trial and four cop killers got off. Walked free. Peirce was later convicted of perjury and jailed.

About seven years ago on air I called her a hypocritical, immoral, conniving, criminal bitch. That was when she admitted that she never planned to ultimately testify against her husband. It was all part of the game. But what can  you expect from a gangster’s moll who admits she laughed when she saw a victim of her husband's gang being cut up with a chainsaw.

As I said, the prosecutor's stuffed up the court case because I believe they should have declared Wendy Peirce a hostile witness at the trial and attempted to get her video confession into evidence. And her other signed statements.

There is a chance that the surviving men charged with the Walsh Street murders may yet face court again under the Baillieu Government's plan to abolish Double Jeopardy.

Currently a person cannot be re-tried for the same crime. But under the new laws they could be: If new and compelling evidence is produced.

All of this is back in the news today because the Coroner, Judge Jennifer Coate, has decided not to conduct an inquest into the deaths of the two officers.

The parents of the dead policemen asked for an inquest in 1996. It was refused. In 2006 another request was refused even though Wendy Peirce had told The Age the plan was hatched by her husband, that it was payback, and that the shooters were Peter McEvoy and Jedd Houghton.

McEvoy made headlines when arrested in New South Wales in 2010 and boasted; "The sweetest thing I ever heard was watching a dog like you's last words while he was dying. There's nothing better than watching a c… like you die."

The coroner cast doubt on that quote. He said McEvoy may have said; "The sweetest thing he ever heard ABOUT..." He also said Wendy Piece would be an unreliable witness and also suffered from anxiety attacks. Yeah, right.

I hope the Double Jeopardy laws are changed. And the only good news today is that two of those cop killers are dead.

Houghton was killed by Police. Victor Peirce was killed in the Underbelly war. No loss to anybody.

Share

PLAY: Derryn Hinch and Geoff Wilkinson discuss latest developments

BELOW: With Wendy Peirce again vowing NOT to officially reveal what she knows about the Walsh Street police murders, re-live Hinch's effort to get the truth from her on-air in a fiery exchange.

RELATED AUDIO:

Hinch lambastes Peirce in 2009

3AW Drive with Hinch

Hinch Hinch is a former police rounds reporter, former foreign correspondent, former newspaper editor, former host of national current affairs shows, former novelist, former radio host in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, former MIDDAY host and former jailbird.

Blog comments Your Say

Post a comment * Mandatory fields