The woman raped by Tom Silvagni has confronted her attacker in court, saying his evil actions had violated not only her body but also her trust.<\/p>\n
The youngest son of AFL great Stephen and television personality Jo<\/a>, Silvagni barely reacted as the woman \u2013 who asked not to named \u2013 laid out how his crimes and series of lies changed her life forever in the Victorian county court in Melbourne on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t just violate my body that night, you violated my trust,\u201d she told Silvagni, who appeared via video link from prison.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s actually terrifying that someone you thought you knew and trusted could do something so evil.\u201d<\/p>\n A jury found Silvagni digitally raped the woman at his Melbourne home in the early hours of 14 January 2024.<\/p>\n The woman, who had been in a brief relationship with Silvagni\u2019s friend, was invited to join them all at the house by Silvagni\u2019s girlfriend.<\/p>\n The four of them chatted for some time before heading separately to bed, and the victim had consensual sex with her boyfriend.<\/p>\n He then had to leave so he organised an Uber and left the property shortly before 2am.<\/p>\n Silvagni then went to the woman\u2019s room and lied when he told her the Uber had been cancelled, and that her boyfriend would come back upstairs soon.<\/p>\n But it was Silvagni who went into the dark bedroom a short time later, and pretended to be the woman\u2019s boyfriend as he digitally raped her.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n She managed to move away and ask directly if he was Silvagni, but he still claimed to be the other man.<\/p>\n Silvagni then grabbed both of the woman\u2019s hands, pinning her down and digitally raped her a second time while she told him to stop.<\/p>\n The woman managed to get a hand free and felt his hair, which was longer than her boyfriend\u2019s, and that\u2019s when Silvagni stopped and ran from the room.<\/p>\n He returned a few minutes later and acted as if nothing had happened, asking her if she was OK and requesting a hug before she left.<\/p>\n In the days that followed, Silvagni fabricated an Uber receipt to make it look like the woman\u2019s boyfriend had left his home after 2.30am.<\/p>\n Stephen and Jo Silvagni spoke to the media after the victim of their youngest son, Tom, addressed a court. Photograph: James Ross\/AAP<\/p>\n Silvagni admitted forging the receipt, but said he did so because he panicked after being falsely accused of rape.<\/p>\n But the jury rejected his story, finding him guilty of the two rape charges on 5 December.<\/p>\n Silvagni had been calculated as he sought to take advantage of the woman\u2019s vulnerability and trust, crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams told the court.<\/p>\n \u201cTo deny the reality of her experience, even at that time, in that way, demonstrates \u2026 a real lack of empathy, a real sense of entitlement,\u201d he said on Friday.<\/p>\n Outside court, Stephen Silvagni broke down as he indicated his son would appeal the verdict.<\/p>\n \u201cOur son continues to maintain his innocence and we stand firmly behind him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to clear his name and bring him home.\u201d<\/p>\n David Hallowes SC, representing Silvagni, accepted the offending was serious but argued his client was a young man from a loving family with no prior convictions.<\/p>\n He told the court Silvagni had suffered additional punishment from the extensive media attention, after the suppression order over his identity was lifted on Thursday.<\/p>\n Silvagni should also receive a lighter sentence because his time in custody would be more difficult due to his poor mental health and risk of suicide, Hallowes said.<\/p>\n Judge Gregory Lyon remanded Silvagni in custody ahead of his sentencing hearing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse is available from the following organisations. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect<\/a> (1800 737 732). In the UK, Rape Crisis<\/a> offers support on 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn<\/a> offers support on 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org\/rcip\/internl.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman raped by Tom Silvagni has confronted her attacker in court, saying his evil actions had violated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-342493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}