Source : Perth Now news
Disgraced author Craig Silvey has written a 9000-word apology on the publishing platform Substack after he was jailed for possessing and distributing category one child exploitation material.
Silvey was sentenced to seven months imprisonment in the Western Australia District Court on Monday after police found 12 images and videos of real children being sexually abused by adults on his iPhone and MacBook.
The former award-winning writer was caught after sharing an image with a fictitious user online and making inappropriate sexualised conversations on an encrypted messaging platforms, where he said he was obsessed with fetishes and little boys.
“Eight-year-olds are the perfect age,” Silvey told a user, believed to be police officer.
Silvey said in his apology he was appalled and mortified by his conduct and “deeply, profoundly sorry”.
“My conduct has blindsided friends and family, the people my world is centred around, people I love and care about devotedly. They are undeserving casualties, and I will carry this regret for the rest of my life,” he said.
“My apologies are as extensive as they are sincere. I have betrayed the trust of many, many thousands of people who have honoured me with kindness and support over many, many years.”
Silvey said he experienced violence and sexual abuse as a child and suffered a mental health crisis late last year, which led to a breakdown.
“As a child, I experienced emotional neglect, violence, and sexual abuse,” he said.
“When faced with instances of overwhelming emotion, I shut down. I suppressed my distress in order to function and survive. I have since learned that compartmentalisation is a very common automatic response for children.”
Silvey claimed he fell apart following a national book tour and his mind was in an “awful place”.
“To numb the fear and panic, I went under. I went down, into the dark, where I got smaller and smaller until I vanished. I couldn’t feel the fire at the surface, but I was drowning in the depths,” he wrote.
“Trauma is the past engulfing the present. Anxiety is the present being besieged by the future. When both consume a person at once, it can feel as though there is no escape.”
During sentencing, Judge Hayley Cormann said imprisonment was the only appropriate punishment, and ultimately, Silvey’s destructive and devastating offending involved real children.
She said while Silvey expressed it was a form of escapism into a fantasy world, the child victims were real and they were traumatised.
She said Silvey’s communications were repulsive, degrading and offensive and he persistently spoke about his desires and the abuse of children in online chats.
“It is clear to me from the materials you did this as a means to engage with others and ultimately as a means to sexually satisfy yourself as part of your fantasies, as well as for the sexual satisfaction of the person or people with whom you were communicating,” she said.
Creative Industries Minister Simone McGurk told media Craig Silvey had lost any sort of credibility.
“His books were loved and they were very popular, but knowing that this person who wrote them is now guilty of these sorts of offences is completely unacceptable,” she said.
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