Craig Silvey has pleaded guilty to two charges related to child exploitation material, completing a fall from grace for a man who up until January was considered one of the nation’s most-loved authors.
Appearing in Fremantle Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning, Mr Silvey – the author of best-selling works Jasper Jones, Honeybee and Runt – pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child exploitation material and one count of distributing child exploitation material.
One charge of producing child exploitation material and one charge of possessing child exploitation material were discontinued by prosecutors.
Silvey spoke only briefly, saying “guilty, your honour”, when asked to offer a plea to each of the two remaining charges.
The matter of the two charges will now go before the District Court for sentencing.
Possessing child exploitation material carries a maximum penalty of seven years behind bars in Western Australia, while individuals convicted of distributing child exploitation material face up to 10 years in jail.
Detectives from WA Police’s Child Exploitation Operations Unit raided the Fremantle home that Silvey shared with his wife and three young children in January, arresting the author in the garage he had converted into an office and in which he had written some of his most-loved works.
The news of his arrest prompted an almost immediate backlash, with the 43-year-old’s books swiftly withdrawn from sale and pulled from school curriculums around the country within hours of the news breaking.
Both Jasper Jones and Runt had been made into feature films while the latter had also been adapted into a stage play. Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre had been scheduled to host a season of Runt in September but paused those plans after Silvey’s arrest.
The charges to which he pleaded guilty were allegedly committed between January 7 and 9 this year. The discontinued child exploitation material charge was originally alleged to have been committed on January 12 – the day of his arrest – while the dropped production of child exploitation material charge dated back to between February and June 2022.
The full details of Silvey’s alleged offending have not yet been disclosed, but police prosecutors told the court soon after Silvey was charged with the offences he has now pleaded guilty to that the author had logged on to an adult website that is used to upload, communicate and exchange explicit material, including pornography and fetish content.
They alleged that Silvey – under the username jimmyjimmyjimmy – started an online conversation with another user on January 7.
According to police, he wrote: “Fremantle guy here, you sound absolutely amazing. Looking gorgeous too. We have very similar interests, would love to chat more. Do you have a session or signal?”
Just months prior to his arrest, Silvey had toured schools across the country to promote the sequel to his breakthrough children’s novel Runt.
He was one of the country’s most acclaimed contemporary authors, and was both critically lauded and commercially successful, but now faces the all but impossible challenge of rebuilding his career with two serious criminal convictions hanging over his head.
The son of schoolteacher parents, Silvey grew up in the picturesque timber town of Dwellingup in southwest Western Australia before moving to the bohemian hub of Fremantle as a teenager to pursue his writing dream.
Silvey’s brother, investment manager Bret Silvey, was last year jailed for 12 years after he defrauded a prominent Perth family out of more than $70m.
Silvey did not offer any comment to waiting media after leaving court, and he remains on bail.
Paul GarveySenior Reporter