Disgraced Australian children's author Craig Silvey is jailed in Australia for seven months over child exploitation material

Craig Silvey, 44, a father of three whose young adult novel 'Jasper Jones' earned international literary award nominations, was sentenced at the Western Australian District Court on Monday after pleading guilty in January. A police search of his Fremantle home turned up his laptop and mobile phone, both of which contained numerous sexually explicit images and videos of children. The prosecutor told the court that a generation of vulnerable children had turned to Silvey's books as a source of safety.

In online chats on a pornography website, Silvey used the handle 'Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy' and told another user he preferred boys aged five and over.

He moved conversations to an encrypted app, writing that 'eight was the perfect age' and 'I want to make out with little ones.'

Silvey described himself as 'extremely open-minded and obsessed with taboos' — messages that prosecutors said represented a profound betrayal of his young readership.