Arabic version: سجن كريغ سيلفي بتهم مواد استغلال الأطفال

According to ABC News, Australian author Craig Silvey has been sentenced to seven months in jail after pleading guilty to possessing and distributing child exploitation material.

The 44-year-old was sentenced on Monday in the WA District Court. Judge Hayley Cormann described the material he possessed and his communications about it as “repulsive” and “degrading”.

The court heard Silvey connected with another user after using an adult pornography website in January and shared an explicit image. Police later searched his Fremantle home and examined his phone and laptop, finding further images and videos of adults sexually abusing children. The user with whom Silvey communicated was “fictitious”, Judge Cormann said.

Judge Cormann accepted that Silvey was “appalled” and “mortified” by his conduct, had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and was at low risk of reoffending. His lawyer, Eloise Barker, said he had attended weekly psychological counselling since the end of January and had shown genuine remorse.

Silvey was previously one of Australia’s commercially successful and critically acclaimed authors. His novel Jasper Jones sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide and was adapted into a feature film. The court heard he had lost publishing contacts, while his books were removed from shop shelves and school curriculums.