Clare Testoni, the former partner of jailed Australian author Craig Silvey, has spoken publicly about the “great betrayal” she experienced after discovering his child exploitation crimes.
Testoni, who was with Silvey for 13 years and shares three young children with him, said she separated from the bestselling writer as soon as she learnt of his offending. She described herself and her children as “secondary victims”.
Silvey, 44, was sentenced to seven months in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to distributing and possessing child exploitation material.
In a lengthy statement released on Friday, Testoni said she had been unaware of his behaviour. “The father of my children and my partner of 13 years revealed himself not to be the man I thought he was,” she wrote.
She said she knew Silvey was under stress and experiencing poor mental health, but did not understand what was happening. At the time, she had seven-month-old twins and a three-year-old child.
“I had been drowning in motherhood and in his growing absence,” she wrote.
Testoni apologised to those affected by Silvey’s crimes, particularly the victims, and said her priority was keeping her children safe. “All children deserve to be safe and loved. That is what I hope to provide for my girls,” she wrote.
She described the period since learning of the offences as the “hardest year” of her life, saying she and her children had suffered greatly while she faced life as the sole parent of three children under four.
Testoni, who is also a writer and creative, said the relationship had increasingly affected her own career. She claimed Silvey had stopped reading her work, discouraged her from continuing her PhD after the birth of their first child and prioritised his more lucrative career.
“Craig has already been a shadow that occluded me at times in my career,” she wrote. “This is an old story badly re-told again and again.”
She said deciding how Silvey would remain involved in the children’s lives was an ongoing 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 wrote.
Craig Silvey’s child exploitation crimes
Police found sexually explicit images and videos involving children and adults when they raided Silvey’s home in Fremantle in January. He had also exchanged messages with another user on a pornography website before moving the conversation to an encrypted messaging application.
In those messages, Silvey described himself as “extremely open-minded and obsessed with taboos” and expressed preferences involving young boys. He also made comments about sexual activity involving children and adults.
After being jailed, Silvey issued a 9,000-word apology in which he accepted responsibility for the offences. He wrote that his conduct was “reprehensible and indefensible” and that it was “re-traumatising to victims, and perpetuates a cycle of harm”.
Silvey also said he had experienced emotional neglect, violence and sexual abuse as a child, and described suffering a mental health crisis before he offended. He said he had betrayed the trust of readers across Australia, many of whom reacted with shock, disgust and disappointment.
The author is best known for the 2009 novel Jasper Jones, which was adapted for film and the stage. His books were withdrawn from promotion by publishers Allen & Unwin and Fremantle Press after he was charged, while his titles were removed from reading lists and permanently taken off the school curriculum.
