Author Craig Silvey has released a 9,000-word statement described as an apology after admitting to child exploitation offences. However, child protection advocates have criticised the essay, noting that fewer than 100 words focus on the victims.
Silvey, 44, is known for novels including Jasper Jones and Runt. He was sentenced to seven months in prison after pleading guilty to possessing and distributing child exploitation material.
The WA District Court heard that police discovered numerous sexually explicit images and videos involving children and adults on his laptop and mobile phone during a raid on his Fremantle home.
On Monday, the day he was sentenced, the father of three published an essay on Substack under the title My Apology.
‘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,’ he wrote.
‘For many who are familiar with me and my work, reactions have included confusion, sadness, shock, dismay, disgust, concern and disappointment. I understand this response, because I share it, too.’
Only around 41 words in the lengthy essay directly referred to the children depicted in the material Silvey admitted possessing and distributing.
‘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,’ he wrote.
Craig Silvey (pictured on Monday) was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment in the WA District Court
The best-selling novelist has since published a 9,000-word essay titled ‘My Apology’
‘I am horrified and aghast that I have caused further suffering by contributing to this scourge.’
Alison Geale, chief executive of child protection organisation Bravehearts, said the statement did not sufficiently acknowledge the children harmed by the material.
‘It begins and ends with him, even in the title. It is a lot about his regret,’ she told ABC News.
‘He speaks in euphemisms. He doesn’t name the actual crime, he minimises that. The children whose images that he accessed… are the victims, not Mr Silvey.’
In the essay, Silvey discussed his difficult relationship with his father, whom he called ’emotionally distant’. He also described the collapse of his world after his older brother, Bret Silvey, received a 12-year prison sentence for defrauding investors.
He said he had lived with ‘trauma, shame and anxiety’ for much of his life and experienced a ‘crisis of mental health and a destructive, despairing breakdown’ before committing the offences.
‘I am shattered that my private conduct has inspired public alarm,’ he wrote.
‘I am particularly heartbroken to have elicited concern amongst parents and guardians, and members of the organisations who kindly extended those invitations. I offer my sincerest apologies to you all.’
Silvey’s apology does not appropriately address the young victims exploited, according to Bravehearts CEO Alison Geale
Silvey also wrote: ‘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. I assure you this is not the case at all.’
Police searched the home he shared with his wife and three young daughters in January. Investigators found evidence that he had been ‘actively engaging’ online with people involved in child abuse.
Court documents say he used the alias ‘Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy’ while speaking with people discussing child abuse on adult websites. He reportedly told them he was a ‘Fremantle guy’ with ‘very similar interests’.
The conversations later moved to an encrypted messaging service, where he described himself as ‘extremely open-minded and obsessed with taboos’. He expressed a preference for boys aged five and older, adding that ‘eight was the perfect age’.
‘I want to make out with little ones,’ the author wrote in one message.
‘I haven’t had any experience, I’m sad to say. I’m a bit obsessed.’
Judge Hayley Cormann said during sentencing that Silvey’s conduct was repulsive and degrading, warning that the abuse would have a lasting effect on victims.
‘This offending involves children, and it is destructive, and it is devastating. Your communication was open, it was assertive, and it was unmistakable,’ she said.
Most of Craig Silvey’s titles have since been removed from reading lists across the country
‘You did this as a means to engage with others, and ultimately as a means to sexually satisfy yourself as part of your fantasies.
‘You acknowledge you have devastated and betrayed the trust of thousands of people, and you have let an entire community down.
‘For the victims of this type of offending, it is real, and they are traumatised.’
Silvey entered his guilty pleas in January, following his arrest.
He rose to prominence with his 2009 coming-of-age novel Jasper Jones, which was later adapted for the big screen and stage.
His other widely read works include Rhubarb, Honeybee—which won the Australian Indie Book Award in 2021—and the children’s book Runt, which was also made into a film.
Publishers Allen & Unwin and Fremantle Press, which published Rhubarb, stopped promoting Silvey’s books after he was charged. Most of his titles have also been removed from reading lists around Australia.
Two additional charges relating to the production and possession of child exploitation material were withdrawn in May.
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