In the early days, expressing some doubts about hird was reasonable and understandable. Now that we know a lot more, i believe anyone slandering Hird should get a permanent ban. Anyone defending him is following the rule of logic and the law. I never saw her posts, but if she was banned for being personally abusive towards people slandering a man who who has been illegally vilified, then it seems the world has gone mad. Why is okay to attack Hird on HTB, but not okay to attack manifestly abusive posters? The logic i guess is that Hird is not a presence here so is not directly affected by personal attacks. Scratch the surface of that statement though and as others have noted, defamation online is a prosecutable offence. Why? Because it materially damages a persons reputation whether they see it or not!
At the end of the day, the forum contains all sorts of attacks on just about everybody in the AFL, so banning people who do that is unrealistic. Far easier to ban an individual caught on the wrong side of the equation. As a result we have a forum full of people free to stand on their soap box slandering everyone under the sun except other posters. It's not a good thing, it's not a fair thing, but it is what it is.