‘Sick’ father who raped his teen daughter gets ten years
A FATHER who raped his teenage daughter throughout her pregnancy and while her two-week-old baby was in the same room has been jailed for ten years.
Jennifer Berry, 43, waived her right to anonymity so that her father Oliver Berry, 61, could be named in any reporting of the case.
He was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury of 104 counts of both raping and sexually assaulting her between December 1982 and December 1994 when she was aged between seven and 19 years old.
Berry, of Newtown Lawns, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, pleaded not guilty to all offences and was convicted following a trial earlier this year. He has two previous convictions for minor offences.
He still maintains his innocence, and Jennifer’s mother, who has since separated from Berry, supports him – giving evidence in his defence at the trial.
Jennifer Berry stated in her victim-impact statement, read into the record by Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, that the first time she was ever abused by her father, he took ‘her innocence and childhood’ from her.
‘The actions of a coward’
She said she found it ‘unbearable’ to hear her mother giving evidence on her father’s behalf.
‘Instead of trying to protect me, she protected him,’ she said. ‘She turned her back on me.
‘I can’t understand how she could do this.
‘I don’t know what I did to deserve two parents like that.’
Jennifer said she was let down in the worst way possible and that she now finds it hard to trust people.
She said she was in fear of her father, and that he told her that if she disclosed the abuse, her siblings would be taken away – which was a big concern for her.
She said she couldn’t concentrate well in school and that she never went to college. She suffered panic attacks and depression from as far back as she could remember.
‘I can’t say for definite, but maybe it would have been different if I had been supported as a child,’ Jennifer continued.
She described the behaviour of her father as the ‘actions of a coward’, and said he must be ‘a sick man’ for hurting her.
She referred to incidents of attempted suicide because of the abuse and said she thanked God that she is still alive.
‘I have finally got justice after 35 years. I am now strong and able to fight. I am not weak any more,’ Jennifer said.
She said she hoped that she had saved at least one person from going through what she did by reporting her father to the gardaí.
Judge Deirdre Murphy had adjourned the case having first heard the evidence two weeks ago.
She said Berry was 25 years old when he first abused his sevenyear-old daughter, and that on occasion he made her wear her mother’s underwear as ‘a prelude to rape’.
She said that the first time he raped her, Jennifer didn’t understand what had happened by ‘virtue of her youth’.
Judge Murphy said that for a year when Berry was out of work, Jennifer was raped most days when she returned home from school for lunch.
On occasion when she refused to go home, she was beaten up by Berry on her ultimate return from school.
She noted that he continued to rape his daughter while she was pregnant with her first child, as he told the victim ‘the damage had now been done’.
The judge said that Jennifer believed that Berry was her son’s father until DNA testing during the Garda investigation into the rapes confirmed her boyfriend at the time was the father.
Judge Murphy said that sexual abuse ‘ruptures wider family bonds’ and added that Jennifer had ‘spent her entire life fighting demons’.
The judge added: ‘She has since learned that she has the strength and capacity to fight those demons.’
Judge Murphy also said that Berry had continually used his victim for his own sexual gratification, and that he had ‘treated her as his property’. She then jailed Berry for ten years.
The judge said she had noted the fact that he continues to protest his innocence, and has indicated that he plans to appeal his convictions.
The judge said she had taken into consideration Berry’s age and state of his health when determining sentence.
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