The news of his arrest prompted an almost immediate backlash, with the 43-year-old\u2019s books swiftly withdrawn from sale and pulled from school curriculums<\/a> around the country within hours of the news breaking<\/a>. <\/p>\n Both Jasper Jones and Runt had been made into feature films while the latter had also been adapted into a stage play. Sydney\u2019s Belvoir St Theatre had been scheduled to host a season of Runt in September but paused those plans after Silvey\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 the day of his arrest \u2013 while the dropped production of child exploitation material charge dated back to between February and June 2022.<\/p>\n The full details of Silvey\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n They alleged that Silvey \u2013 under the username jimmyjimmyjimmy \u2013 started an online conversation with another user on January 7.<\/p>\n According to police, he wrote: \u201cFremantle 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?\u201d<\/p>\n Just months prior to his arrest, Silvey had toured schools across the country to promote the sequel to his breakthrough children\u2019s novel Runt. <\/p>\n He was one of the country\u2019s most acclaimed contemporary authors, and was both critically lauded and commercially successful, but now faces the all but impossible challenge of rebuilding his \u00adcareer with two serious criminal convictions hanging over his head.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Silvey\u2019s brother, investment manager Bret Silvey, was last year jailed for 12 years after he defrauded a prominent Perth family out of more than $70m.<\/p>\n Silvey did not offer any comment to waiting media after leaving court, and he remains on bail.<\/p>\n Paul Garvey is an award-winning journalist with more than two decades’ experience in newsrooms around Australia and the world. He is currently the senior reporter in The Australian\u2019s WA bureau, covering politics, courts, billionaires and everything in between. He has previously written for The Wall Street Journal in New York, The Australian Financial Review in Melbourne, and for The Australian from Hong Kong before returning to his native Perth. He was the WA Journalist of the Year in 2024 and is a two-time winner of The Beck Prize for political journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Craig Silvey has pleaded guilty to two charges related to child exploitation material, completing a fall from grace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7227,7226,7244,22,23,133,21,7230,7228,823,7242,6177,7241,7243,7234,7239,7225,7235,7233,6183,7229,5177,120,7238,335,7231,1800,7240,7237,353,7236,7232],"class_list":{"0":"post-5951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-acclaimed-author","9":"tag-acclaimed-contemporary-authors","10":"tag-arrest-breaking","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","14":"tag-austrlia","15":"tag-belvoir-st-theatre","16":"tag-breakthrough-children","17":"tag-child-exploitation","18":"tag-child-exploitation-material","19":"tag-craig-silvey","20":"tag-criminal-convictions","21":"tag-discontinued-child-exploitation","22":"tag-distributing-child-exploitation","23":"tag-exploitation-material-charge","24":"tag-exploitation-material-face","25":"tag-fetish-content","26":"tag-investment-manager","27":"tag-jasper-jones","28":"tag-leaving-court","29":"tag-magistrates-court","30":"tag-oceania","31":"tag-paul-garvey","32":"tag-perth","33":"tag-picturesque-timber-town","34":"tag-police-prosecutors","35":"tag-school-curriculums","36":"tag-schoolteacher-parents","37":"tag-western-australia","38":"tag-writing-dream-silvey","39":"tag-young-children"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/paul_garvey.png\")
<\/a>Paul Garvey<\/a>Senior Reporter<\/p>\n