Barefoot Investor Scott Pape has offered financial advice to thousands of readers who write to him every day. This is the one story that brought him to tears

Dear sir,

My name is Wayne Holdsworth. I am the father of Mac Brennan Holdsworth, who was 16 when this horrific crime occurred. Mac committed suicide in October 2023, when he was 17.

I saw Mac every day since the crime and it was clear that Mac was never as confident, committed, or as confident as he was before the crime.

Examples of his lost self-confidence included not wanting to be a leader at his footy clubs, yet being the primary school captain and captain of a premiership footy team before the crime against him took place.

Mac stopped writing greeting cards when he told me in the car one day that he was afraid the card would be shown to others.

He said he was concerned about posting photos because he feared they could be used against him.

He came home from work, stayed in his room and came out to dinner alone. You could say this isn’t unusual, but prior to the crime he came out and laughed and watched sports on TV with me.

The night the crime occurred after the second request for more money, I spoke to the defendant who pleaded guilty and the defendant told me he didn’t care about my son and that he was going to post the photos.

This germ’s messages read: ‘Your parents will hate you, you will be ashamed and you will want to die’. The shame my innocent victim son felt when he had to do a foot workout the next night was humiliating.

A number of things contributed to his suicide and one of them was the sexual extortion of the defendant. There is what is commonly called blood on your hands.

The suicide rate is up 10% in NSW. It is the biggest killer in NSW and I am now working with the Victorian Government to introduce similar legislation that South Australia has passed and that NSW is now considering.

But what good is all this if we don’t try to eliminate some of the reasons that young people commit suicide.

I urge you, Sir, to punish this heinous activity and impose the strongest possible punishment to possibly deter this most damaging of extortionist behavior.

You, the defendant, were implicit in taking my son’s life and leaving his entire family, including his 15 year old sister and brother, hearts broken forever.

Can you imagine the pain and sorrow I just had cleaning out his room and discovering the entire history of his life?

Can you imagine the tears streaming down my face as I moved his bike that he rode in the rain, cold and freezing conditions to get to work at 7am.

A decent child trying to earn an honest living making trusses. Not like you who work in your illegal drug regime and sexually extort innocent young boys.

You deserve to be punished at the highest level possible. You didn’t request my information to apologize. Therefore, despite the facade you may be portraying today, you are not an honest dinkum, nor are you truly sorry.

I’m 100 percent sure that if you were paid a thousand dollars right now to do the exact same thing with the same possible consequences, you wouldn’t think twice about it and commit the crime.

You need to learn a lesson.

The cycle of extorting to pay for your drug addiction must be broken and a long prison sentence is the only possible circuit breaker.

Thank you sir.