The tense second rapist’s mom Jo Silvagni comes nose to nose along with her son’s sufferer in courtroom – simply moments after the younger girl had revealed the horror of the assault

Former glamour girl and mother of a convicted rapist Jo Silvagni couldn’t bear to be in court to hear the evil her son has done.

On Friday, Tom Silvagni, 23, watched from a prison video room as his victim bravely told him all the ways he had destroyed her life. 

He was unmasked yesterday after he was found guilty last week of twice raping the then 20-year-old after posing as her boyfriend. 

Seated within the confines of the Melbourne Assessment Prison, Silvagni sat and stared at the screen for more than 30 minutes as the woman he violated spoke directly to him about the impact of his crime. 

His famous parents Jo and former AFL football star Stephen Silvagni were notably absent from the packed courtroom despite earlier making their way past a media pack to enter the County Court of Victoria. 

Whether they watched the young woman’s delivery on a videolink from a nearby rooms remains unclear. 

But when Mrs Silvagni finally entered the courtroom, just as the woman finished her powerful statement to the court, the mother appeared to glare at her son’s rape victim. 

Walking to the front of the court and taking a seat about two metres away from the young woman, Mrs Silvagni stared at her. 

Had she been in court, Mrs Silvagni would have heard how her son had held his victim’s hands behind her back and repeatedly raped her. 

But the family didn’t back down upon leaving court about 1pm, telling a media pack they intended to appeal their son’s rape conviction. 

‘Jo and I, together with our family members and friends, are so disappointed with the outcome,’ Stephen Silvagni said before breaking down in tears. 

With his wife’s arm around him, he continued to discredit their son’s brave victim. 

‘We all love and support our son Tom. Our son continues to maintain his innocence and we stand firmly behind him,’ he said. 

‘We will be considering our options to appeal and shall not be making any further comments on this case. Our goal is to clear his name and bring him home.’  

The brazen attack had happened on January 14 last year in a bedroom at the Silvagni’s mansion. 

His victim had classed herself as a friend of Silvagni and had been seeing his mate.

Reading her victim impact statement directly to Silvagni, the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described the premeditated and calculated nature of the attack and the devastating, lifelong consequences she has endured for the past two years.

‘You can continue denying for the rest of your life, but we both know that deep down, you are very much aware of what you did to me that night,’ she told him. 

‘What you did was not a mistake. It was premeditated. You planned this in your head and came to the conclusion that it was a good idea and wanted to follow through with it. 

‘Your actions that night have changed the way I trust, the way I sleep and the way I move through the world now.

‘It was an intentional deception that required planning, calculation and a willingness to violate another human being. Me … It’s actually terrifying that someone you thought you knew and trusted could do something so evil.’

The court heard the victim had arrived at the Balwyn North house shortly after midnight on January 14, 2024, after she was invited there by the accused’s girlfriend.

A drinking session had taken place earlier, but by 12.23am only Silvagni, his model girlfriend Alannah Iaconis and his former best friend, Anthony LoGuidice, with whom the victim was in a casual sexual relationship, were still present.

The jury heard the victim had consensual sex with Mr LoGuidice in an upstairs bedroom.

At 1.58am, Mr LoGuidice, a close relation of former Carlton president Mark LoGuidice, left in an Uber, arriving at his home at 2.09am.

Silvagni then deceived the woman, falsely claiming Mr LoGuidice’s Uber had been cancelled and that he would be returning upstairs.

Instead, Silvagni entered the darkened bedroom himself, climbed into the bed and impersonated Mr LoGuidice before digitally raping the woman twice. 

Silvagni’s victim told the court she had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress as a direct result of the rape.

She spoke of waking from nightmares feeling Silvagni holding her down, of screaming and backing away when her own father tried to hug her, and of crying in the shower so no one would hear.

‘There’s been times I couldn’t even hug my own dad… because all I could feel was you touching me,’ she said.

She described recurring flashbacks that transport her back to the bedroom, the terror of a large man pinning her arms behind her back, and Silvagni’s whispered attempt to deceive her by saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s me, Anthony.’

‘Every day of my life I am taken back to that vision. You holding my hands behind my back where you got some kind of deep satisfaction out of immobilising me and raping me,’ she said. 

‘No matter how many times I told you to stop or tried to wriggle out of your grip.’

She said the ripple effects of Silvagni’s actions had been catastrophic, causing lost friendships, including the end of a 12-year best friendship ‘broken off over a matter related to your actions’. 

The woman told the court the two-year legal process had prolonged her trauma, forcing her to relive the assault repeatedly, including listening again to the pretext phone call in which Silvagni continued to lie. 

‘So the first six months after the rape, while the investigation was taking place, were the most nerve-wracking, anxious days of my life,’ she said. 

‘I had to wake up every day, praying today was the day I’ll get the call from police saying that they will or won’t be able to press charges. 

‘I had no estimate as to how long the investigation was going to take.’

The woman said she carried the burden of destroying Silvagni’s career, his relationships and life over his own actions. 

‘You took months of my life from the confusion and gaslighting that took place not only throughout the assault itself, but in the days and weeks after,’ she said. 

‘The denial of your own actions stretched my suffering even further. Every deflection, every excuse made healing even harder. You literally tried to (gaslight) me in the middle of the assault to convince me the person in the room with me wasn’t you.

‘That is going to affect me for the rest of my life in many ways. You lied directly into the confusion you created. 

‘The fear you caused me didn’t just come from the assault. It came from you telling me not to trust myself. For a moment, you made me doubt things I knew were absolutely true. You didn’t just violate my body that night?  You violated my trust. ‘

Silvagni will be sentenced at a date to be fixed.