Jo Silvagni once boasted about her family’s special Christmas gatherings. This is how rapist Tom will spend his Xmas today – as he leaves an empty chair at the clan’s lunch table
Rapist Tom Silvagni will miss his family’s famously lavish Christmas celebrations today as he spends his first festive season behind bars.
His mum, former Sale of the Century host Jo Silvagni, once raved about the Silvagni family’s bumper Christmas gatherings with her AFL great husband Steve.
In a giggly past interview, Jo said the couple would host the ‘whole family’ at their triple-storey mansion in Melbourne‘s Balwyn North, describing the gatherings as ‘well worth the wait’ and spanning three generations.
But this year, there will be an empty seat at the dinner table – and the celebrations will be far from the mansion they once called home.
Speaking about her family Christmases earlier, Jo revealed she hated plum pudding – but for Tom, 23, plum pudding is likely exactly what will be on the menu.
He will be marking the day in a prison cell, believed to be at the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, about 200 kilometres west of Melbourne, which houses sex offenders.
The newly sentenced Victorian inmate is understood to have been transferred from Melbourne Assessment Prison after receiving a maximum sentence of six years and two months’ imprisonment for twice raping his friend’s girlfriend.
The crime was carried out in an upstairs bedroom of the family home.
That property has since been sold for $7million and the Daily Mail understands the family are now based in Queensland.
From footy royalty to felon
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AFL great Stephen Silvagni (left), a Mister Bianco restaurant host, Silvagni’s sons Jack, Tom and Ben, and TV hostess wife Jo in 2021, four years before the fabled Melbourne family would be rocked by the rape conviction of Tom, who’s now spending his first Xmas in jail
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Tom Silvagni (right, in black tie, left in a court sketch of him beamed in to court from jail) usually got clothes for Christmas, but he won’t need them this year or any time soon as he’s wearing prison greens for at least four festive seasons
Far removed from any Christmas cheer his parents may muster over the traditional Silvagni spread of prawns, ham, turkey and trifle served on fine china, Tom will eat his lunch from an aluminium prison tray.
Corrections Victoria described the Christmas meal as ‘modest’. It will be the same that triple murderer Erin Patterson will eat on December 25 at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre for women.
The meal is likely to arrive cold at their respective cells while in protective custody. It will include ‘a selection of cooked meats with gravy, roast vegetables and salads’, followed by ‘plum pudding with custard for dessert’.
As Jo Silvagni told her employer Chemist Warehouse’s infomercial channel The House of Wellness in 2016, rather than eating the hated plum pudding, the Silvagnis ‘make a chocolate cake which is sensational’.
In the video, viewed by Daily Mail before it was removed from the Chemist Warehouse/House of Wellness Facebook page, Jo laughed while she described the best gift she ever received from her husband, two-time Carlton premiership great Steve Silvagni.
‘We’d just built our house so we weren’t buying each other presents, I bought him a pair of thongs and he bought me a new car!’
This Christmas, Ms Silvagni will not be able to give her convicted son the usual gift of clothes. Nor is he likely to need them any time soon: Silvagni must serve a minimum of three years and three months in prison, meaning at least four Christmases behind bars.
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A sombre Jo Silvagni, the former model and TV host turned Chemist Warehouse brand ambassador, arrives at court with her son who has been convicted of rape and is now spending his first Xmas in prison
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Three months after their sons twice raped a young woman in an upstairs bedroom of their three-storey Melbourne mansion, the Silvagnis sold it for around $7m and have now relocated to Queensland
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Home sweet home for Tom Silvagni – and dinner location for at least the next four Christmases – is likely to be the Hopkins Correctional Centre at Ararat 200km west of Melbourne
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Jo cracks up during a Chemist Warehouse House of Wellness video about the top features at a Silvagni family Christmas, at which there will be an empty chair this year with convicted rapist son Tom in jail
Even if his family had not left Victoria, reportedly to escape the intense attention that followed the public revelation of their son’s identity, they would not have been able to visit him on Christmas Day.
Erin Patterson’s Christmas
Like mushroom murderer Erin Patterson, Silvagni and the state’s other 6,000 inmates will spend the day without visitors, as Victoria’s public prisons are closed to visitors on Christmas Day.
Inmates with approved visitors were offered additional visiting days for friends and family in the lead-up to the public holiday, should Patterson have anyone wishing to see her.
Patterson’s remaining immediate family is limited.
Apart from her estranged husband and a reportedly estranged sister, she has only her two children. Her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, were among those she murdered, along with her husband’s aunt Heather Wilkinson.
She also attempted to murder Heather’s husband, Ian.
Patterson was found guilty in July, nearly two years after serving a fatal beef Wellington lunch laced with death cap mushrooms containing the lethal amatoxin – a poison that caused catastrophic liver failure in her victims.
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Death cap mushroom killer Erin Patterson (above, arriving at court in August to be sentenced to life imprisonment) is spending her first Christmas in jail as a convicted killer, with at least 30 more festive seasons behind bars
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On Christmas morning, Patterson will be given a breakfast pack of toast and cereal, cold meat and salad for dinner and a festive lunch of meat and vegetables served in a foil tray in her cell. Above, pictured, a NSW prison meal in an aluminium container
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The exercise yard at the Dame Phyllis Frost correctional centre for women where triple murderer Erin Patterson spends about an hour a day out of her cell, with little meaningful human contact other than prison officers
Now aged 51, the former wealthy property owner is spending her first Christmas behind bars as a convicted killer. It is the first of at least 31 festive seasons in custody after she was sentenced to three concurrent life terms plus an additional 25 years.
She will not be eligible for parole until at least 2056, when she will be 82.
In time, and subject to her behaviour in custody, Patterson may be moved from maximum security. She has recently been held in near-isolation, locked alone in her cell for up to 23 hours a day with no meaningful human contact.
Despite reports that Patterson has been occupying herself with crocheting, the Gordon unit where she has been housed is primarily used for inmates on suicide watch, where items such as crochet hooks would be considered high risk.
On Christmas morning, Patterson will be issued a basic breakfast pack of toast and cereal. She will then spend the day alone in her cell, before being served a cold meat and salad meal for dinner.
Christmas for Molly Ticehurst’s killer Daniel Billings
Murderer Daniel Billings, who cruelly killed his ex-girlfriend Molly Ticehurst, is spending his first Christmas behind bars at the Silverwater maximum-security prison complex in western Sydney.
Billings pleaded guilty to Molly’s murder last month and is expected to receive a lengthy jail sentence when he faces court in person for a two-day sentencing hearing beginning on June 1, 2026.
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Billings (left) is facing a lengthy sentence for killing Molly Ticehurst (right) who he had threatened to murder in a reign of terror before he finally carried it out
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Prison dinners will be served in foil trays at Silverwater prison where Daniel Billings, who murdered young mother Molly Ticehurst, is spending his first Christmas
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Daniel Billings can receive no visits from his mother Eileen Ogilvie (above) on Xmas day or any gifts or a video call
Ms Ticehurst, a 28-year-old childcare educator, was found dead in her home in Forbes, in central western New South Wales, in the early hours of April 22, 2024.
Billings had terrorised the mother-of-one for months after she ended their relationship, and Molly had warned friends that if ‘I end up dead’ it would be him.
In a phone call on April 3, Billings threatened her: ‘I will come in the middle of the night. I will get to you if it is the last thing I do.’
Despite this, a court registrar granted Billings bail on charges including raping the young mother three times, stalking and harassing her, and assaulting her dachshund puppy.
He later returned to her home, broke in, and stabbed her 15 times in a ferocious attack that lasted less than a minute.
Billings’ phone contact with family on Christmas Day will be limited. Video calls are not permitted on December 25, and no person in custody can receive gifts due to security rules.
A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman said family and friends of the state’s 12,900 inmates are welcome to visit loved ones in person or via video call during the festive season, but not on Christmas Day itself.
Many inmates have access to in-cell tablet devices, which would allow Billings to speak with his mother, Eileen Ogilvie, and his stepfather. The purpose-built tablets operate on a secure network, with restricted access and no connection to the internet.
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Christmas lunch for all of NSW’s 12,900 inmates across more than 30 correctional centres will be the same, turkey and vegetables served in a foil tray or a vegetarian meal of mushrooms with beans and a mince pie for dessert
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Jessica Camilleri, who beheaded her mother Rita and dumped the head on a suburban footpath, has been housed at Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre (above, another female inmate) where she attacked female officers, pulling out their hair
Billings will wake up in his cell to a standard breakfast pack of cereal, bread, jam and a carton of milk, before spending the day alone.
For Christmas lunch, he will receive the same meal served to other convicted killers in the NSW prison system.
They include Jessica Camilleri, who beheaded her mother, Rita, and dumped her head on a suburban footpath, and remains imprisoned until at least 2031, having repeatedly extended her sentence due to repeated jailhouse attacks.
Also incarcerated is Amira Droudis, the former girlfriend of Lindt Café siege perpetrator Man Monis, who is set to mark her eighth Christmas of a maximum 44-year sentence for murdering Monis’ wife in 2013.
Droudis stabbed the woman and set her alight in a bid to take over as mother of her children.
Believed to be housed at Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre, Droudis will have the option of a vegetarian meal of mushrooms with roast vegetables and beans, if the former party girl–turned Muslim convert continues to observe the faith of the late Monis.
A small fruit mince pie will be the only dessert option.
‘Body in a barrel’ child killer
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Justin Stein is serving life without the possibility of release from prison after the sentencing judge threw the book at him for murdering nine-year-old Charlise Mutten
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Gold Coast schoolgirl Charlise was on holiday with her ten ice-addicted mother Kallista (pictured together, left) when Stein murdered the 9-year-old and dumped her body in an orange produce barrel (above, right)
Justin Stein, the man serving a life sentence with no possibility of release for the murder of a child whose body he dumped in a barrel, will be served the standard Christmas main meal of roast turkey with gravy, potatoes and seasonal vegetables.
Now in his mid-30s, Stein appeared in declining health when Justice Helen Wilson sentenced him last year, denying him any chance of parole.
The never-to-be-released inmate murdered nine-year-old Charlise Mutten, the daughter of his then girlfriend, after shooting her dead and disposing of her body in a barrel.
Stein, who is being treated for schizophrenia in custody and has remained in contact primarily with his antique-dealer mother, Annemie Stein, has been held in protection following his high-profile murder trial.
Charlise had been on holiday with her mother, Kallista, who was addicted to ice at the time, staying at Stein’s family estate in the Blue Mountains where he shot the child twice.
He then placed Charlise’s body upside down in an orange plastic produce barrel, transported it in the back of his ute, and later dumped it on a riverbank.
Stein’s final meal on Christmas night will be a choice of pizza with pasta salad, or a vegetarian pizza with salad, followed by a Christmas muffin.
Wife killer Gerard Baden-Clay
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Gerard Baden-Clay at the funeral of his wife Allison, the mother of three daughters he is pictured with, above. He was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison – but is due out in 2027
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Above is a prison mug shot of wife killer Gerard Baden-Clay, the smarmy failed real estate agent who smothered his wife to death to try and claim her $800,000 life insurance payout to prop up his business
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Allison Baden-Clay (above with husband Gerard) was the successful one of the couple, but he ended her life at the age of 43 to cover up his affairs, failed business and money troubles
Gerard Baden-Clay, the cocky real estate agent and murderer, is now counting down the days as he marks his second-last Christmas behind bars.
Imprisoned in Queensland since killing his wife Alison in 2012, Baden-Clay was sentenced to life after a murder trial that gripped the nation. He is due for release in June 2027.
A great-grandson of scouting movement founder and British war hero Lord Robert Baden-Powell, Gerard was known for frequently reminding others of his distinguished lineage.
Inside prison, however, that celebrated heritage has counted for little.
Baden-Clay reportedly ‘went to jelly’ and wept following his 2014 conviction when his parents visited him at Wolston Correctional Centre, just 30 minutes from the creek where he dumped Alison’s body.
Before the murder, Baden-Clay was a failed businessman in Brisbane’s affluent western suburbs and was conducting an affair while married to the mother of his three children, who held an $800,000 life insurance policy he intended to claim.
While imprisoned at Wolston Correctional Centre in 2016, Baden-Clay struck up a friendship with triple murderer Max Sica. The pair were seen walking the prison grounds together between shifts pushing food trolleys.
Sica is serving Queensland’s longest sentence, 35 years, for the brutal 2003 murders of his former girlfriend Neelma Singh and her two siblings, Sidhi and Kunal. Their bodies were later found placed in a bathtub at a home in northern Brisbane.
Baden-Clay has twice been banned from working as a carer for other inmates, an ongoing punishment stemming from allegations that he inappropriately touched a prison officer.
His paid role, earning $3.60 a day, ended in 2019 after he touched a male prison officer’s buttocks at Wolston. He was subsequently moved to another unit that houses high-profile criminals as well as adult and child sex offenders.
Now aged 55, Baden-Clay, whose three daughters with Allison are now all adults, is expected to live with his elderly parents, Nigel and Elaine, upon his release.
