{"id":954718,"date":"2026-11-06T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T12:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/954718\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T12:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T12:40:12","slug":"clare-testoni-former-partner-of-disgraced-novelist-craig-silvey-writes-of-betrayal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/954718\/","title":{"rendered":"Clare Testoni, former partner of disgraced novelist Craig Silvey, writes of ‘betrayal’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ex-partner of disgraced novelist Craig Silvey has spoken of suffering a “betrayal” and how she and their three young children are “secondary victims” of his crimes.<\/p>\n

Writer Clare Testoni, who separated from Silvey after 13 years in the wake of his arrest on child exploitation charges, posted a statement online on yesterday evening, telling of “the hardest year of my life” since his arrest in January this year.<\/p>\n

How Craig Silvey ended up behind bars<\/a><\/p>\n

Author Craig SIlvey’s conviction on child exploitation material charges leaves a generation of book lovers feeling “great betrayal”.<\/p>\n

Silvey was jailed this week for seven months for possessing and distributing graphic images and videos of child exploitation<\/p>\n

In sentencing him, Judge Hayley Cormann said the material he possessed and his communications about it were “repulsive” and “degrading”.<\/p>\n

Ms Testoni’s statement detailed her increasing distance from Silvey over the past six years, and their eventual estrangement when she learned of his crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Great betrayal’<\/p>\n

She described what Silvey did as a “great betrayal”.<\/p>\n

“The father of my children and my partner of 13 years revealed himself not to be the man I thought he was,” Ms Testoni wrote.<\/p>\n

“While I was aware he was stressed and his mental health was suffering I had no idea what was truly going on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I had seven month old twins, a three year old, I had been drowning in motherhood and in his growing absence.”<\/p>\n

Ms Testoni expressed her sorrow for those whose abuse was depicted in the material Silvey shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Craig<\/p>\n

Craig Silvey arrives at court for his sentencing on Monday. (ABC News: Cason Ho)<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m especially sorry for the victims,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

“All children deserve to be safe and loved. That is what I hope to provide for my girls.”<\/p>\n

‘Secondary victims’<\/p>\n

Her statement came days after Silvey posted his own 9,000-word essay online <\/a>in which he tried to explain what led to his offending, outlining his own sexual abuse as a child and his anguished mental state.<\/p>\n

Ms Testoni, who is understood to have moved from Fremantle to New South Wales after separating from Silvey, said this year had been the hardest of her life.<\/p>\n

“With little children and no employment, this betrayal came at the time in my life when I was most financially and socially vulnerable,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

“It is hard to rebuild friendships after escaping a toxic relationship when you are the sole parent to three under four.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Silvey jailed over ‘most depraved’ child exploitation material<\/a><\/p>\n

Disgraced Australian author Craig Silvey is jailed by a Perth judge after admitting he distributed graphic images of adults abusing children over a messaging service.<\/p>\n

“It is harder still while being followed by the Daily Mail on your way to Centrelink.”<\/p>\n

“We separated as soon [as I] learned of his crimes but he remains the father of our children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Reconciling how he will be in their lives is an ongoing project that I don\u2019t think anyone else can understand until it happens to them.<\/p>\n

“We are secondary victims in this. We have suffered greatly.”<\/p>\n

Sexual assault support services:Silvey ‘a shadow’<\/p>\n

Ms Testoni said she had become increasingly estranged from Silvey as his writing career blossomed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Craig has already been a shadow that occluded me at times in my career,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

“He supported many of my endeavours with enthusiasm but in the last six years he had stopped reading my work when I shared it with him, discouraged me from continuing my PhD when we had our first child, and generally prioritised his own more lucrative career over mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is an old story badly re-told again and again.<\/p>\n

“I hope to tell a new story going forward.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ex-partner of disgraced novelist Craig Silvey has spoken of suffering a “betrayal” and how she and their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[522122,216925,522121,522120,43,44,86,41,39,42,40,45,522123,522124],"class_list":["post-954718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-clare-testoni","tag-craig-silvey","tag-craig-silvey-child-exploitation-images","tag-craig-silvey-child-sex","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-perth-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wa-news","tag-who-was-craig-silveys-partner","tag-who-was-craig-silveys-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954718","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=954718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}