Updated ,first published
A 68-year-old woman linked to West Australian author Craig Silvey’s child abuse allegations has been revealed to be a grandmother with an extensive history of volunteering in the community.
Glenda Joy McGregor was arrested in February and charged with producing and distributing child exploitation material after police investigating Silvey conducted forensic analysis on the devices they seized.
McGregor has been remanded in custody and will appear in Joondalup Magistrates Court on the charges in April.
It can now be revealed the Marangaroo woman is the former vice president of the Fremantle Branch of the Ulysses Club, a local motorcycle group involved in assisting the broader community; volunteered at the Perkins Institute MACA Cancer 200 bike ride for eight years; and volunteered for five years with Women’s Walk for Cancer.
McGregor is a mother of three daughters and five grandchildren, who spent 10 years in the Army before they were born and went on to work in a series of administrative roles.
WA Police released information about her charges on Monday, which include three counts of failing to comply with reporting obligations.
At the same time, police said Silvey was now facing a new charge of producing child exploitation material and a charge of possessing child exploitation material.
He appeared in Fremantle Magistrates Court on Monday where the facts included that his new charges were in relation to “written material”.
While it is not known whether Silvey and McGregor’s charges are linked, the court previously heard the 43-year-old writer was allegedly caught “actively engaging” with other alleged child exploitation offenders online.
The author, best known for his 2009 novel Jasper Jones, was banned from accessing the internet as part of his bail conditions after police accused him of engaging in online conversations over several days in January, during which he allegedly expressed a sexual interest in children and distributed child exploitation material.
Silvey was eventually released on a $100,000 surety, but his lawyers went back to court days later asking to vary his conditions so he could access his phone and delete his social media accounts.
His bail conditions were extended on Monday, and his matter was adjourned to a further hearing in May.
Silvey’s publisher, Allen & Unwin, has halted promotion of his books as state education departments pull his novels from school bookshelves.
Education departments in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory have also instructed schools to remove Silvey’s catalogue.
Book stores around the country are also pulling Silvey’s books from their shelves, including major retailer Dymocks.
Silvey has been writing for more than 20 years, with Jasper Jones selling nearly 1 million copies worldwide.
His 2022 novel Runt collected a number of awards and was adapted into a feature film in 2024.
Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre Company has indefinitely paused work on its stage adaption of Runt, which was due to open in August.
The City of Subiaco, which runs the Craig Silvey Award for Young Writers, said the author would no longer be the award’s namesake.
With 9 News Perth
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
