Source : Perth Now news
The former partner of disgraced Australian author Craig Silvey has spoken of the “great betrayal” she suffered on discovering his child exploitation crimes.
Clare Testoni, Silvey’s partner of 13 years, revealed in a long statement released on Friday that she separated from him as soon as she learnt of his crimes, describing herself and their three young children as “secondary victims”.
The 44-year-old novelist was sentenced on Monday to seven months’ imprisonment, after being charged in January and subsequently pleading guilty to distributing and possessing child exploitation material.
Testoni said she had been unaware of his offending.
“The father of my children and my partner of 13 years revealed himself not to be the man I thought he was,” she wrote.
“While I was aware he was stressed and his mental health was suffering, I had no idea what was truly going on.
“I had seven-month-old twins, a three-year-old, I had been drowning in motherhood and in his growing absence.”
Testoni expressed sympathy for those affected by Silvey’s crimes.
“I am sorry for those who have been hurt by Craig’s crimes. I’m especially sorry for the victims,” she wrote.
“All children deserve to be safe and loved. That is what I hope to provide for my girls.”
Testoni described the period since learning of his crimes as the “hardest year” of her life, saying she and her children had “suffered greatly”.
“With little children and no employment, this betrayal came at the time in my life when I was most financially and socially vulnerable,” she said.
“It is hard to rebuild friendships after escaping a toxic relationship when you are the sole parent to three under four.
“It is harder still while being followed by the Daily Mail on your way to Centrelink.”
Testoni, herself a writer and creative, also claimed Silvey had increasingly overshadowed her career and discouraged her from pursuing her ambitions.
“I am a creative myself, and a writer. Craig has already been a shadow that occluded me at times in my career,” she wrote.
“He supported many of my endeavours with enthusiasm but in the last six years he had stopped reading my work when I shared it with him, discouraged me from continuing my PhD when we had our first child, and generally prioritised his own more lucrative career over mine.
“This is an old story badly re-told again and again.”
Despite separating from Silvey, Testoni acknowledged he remained the father of their children and said navigating his future involvement would be a challenge.
“Reconciling how he will be in their lives is an ongoing project that I don’t think anyone else can understand until it happens to them,” she said.
Looking ahead, Testoni said she hoped to reclaim her own identity and rebuild her life.
Disturbing messages
Silvey, the bestselling author of Jasper Jones, was found with numerous sexually explicit images and videos involving children and adults on his laptop and mobile phone when police raided his Fremantle home in January.
He had also engaged in an online conversation with another user on a pornography website, using the username “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy”.
In the chat, Silvey described himself as a “Fremantle guy” before telling the user “you sound amazing … we have very similar interests, would love to chat more; do you have Signal or Session?”
The pair moved to an encrypted messaging app, where he said he was “extremely open-minded and obsessed with taboos” and preferred boys aged five-plus before adding that “eight was the perfect age”.
“I want to make out with little ones,” the author said in one message.
“I love pedo-mum stuff.”
Silvey, who has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the International Dublin Literary Award, also wrote he was “drooling” over a sexually explicit photo of a naked man and boy together.
He also wrote: “I love, love, love, love mums being intimate with little boys. I think it’s the sexiest and most beautiful thing in the world.”
Silvey’s apology
Silvey issued a 9000-word apology after being jailed, revealing he was abused as a child.
He said that throughout his life he had always been able to find the right words “but articulating the depth of my contrition and the enormity of my remorse feels beyond my aptitude for language”.
“I am guilty of these offences. I am appalled and mortified by my conduct, and I am deeply, profoundly sorry,” he wrote.
“I want to acknowledge that my engagement with this material is reprehensible and indefensible.
“It is re-traumatising to victims, and perpetuates a cycle of harm.”
Silvey said he betrayed the trust of thousands of people across the country, including those who had read his books, many of whom reacted to his offending with “shock, dismay, disgust, concern and disappointment”.
“I am painfully aware of the possible assumption that my offence must have been informed by a horrible and inappropriate attraction, and that my behaviour must then be connected to sinister and ulterior motivations,” he wrote.
“I assure you this is not the case at all.”
Silvey said he had carried a history of “trauma, shame and anxiety” through most of his life.
“As a child, I experienced emotional neglect, violence, and sexual abuse,” he wrote.
Silvey said he suffered a “crisis of mental health and a destructive, despairing breakdown” before he offended.
The popular author is best known for his 2009 coming‑of‑age novel Jasper Jones, considered a modern Australian classic and adapted into a feature film and several stage productions.
He has also been widely recognised for other books, including Rhubarb, Honeybee — which won the Australian Indie Book Award in 2021 — and the children’s novel Runt, which was also made into a film.
Publishers Allen & Unwin and Fremantle Press, which released Rhubarb, stopped promoting his books after Silvey was charged and most of his titles were removed from reading lists across the country.
His books were also permanently removed from the school curriculum, with the Education Department declaring there was “absolutely no place in our school system for works authored by someone who is admitted to such serious crimes”.
— With AAP
