IRELAND’S MOST EVIL DAD
He raped daughter for 12yrs.. even when she was pregnant Victim’s pain as mum backs her beast husband
A MONSTER dad who raped his daughter for 12 years – even when she was pregnant – was caged yesterday.
Oliver Berry, 61, routinely abused Jennifer during her school lunch breaks. His vile attacks began when she was seven and continued during her pregnancy as a teenager and even with her newborn in the room. Jennifer, 43, slammed her mum who testified for Jennifer the paedophile, adding: “I don’t know what I did to deserve two parents like that.”
AN abuse survivor who slammed her mother for protecting her paedophile father told a court: “She turned her back on me.”
Jennifer Berry, 43, spoke out as depraved Oliver Berry was caged for 10 years at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
The 61-year-old predator was convicted by a jury of 104 counts of raping and sexually assaulting her between December 1982 and December 1994 when she was aged between seven and 19.
Disturbing details emerged of coward Berry’s relentless reign of terror, which included:
■ Raping her while she was pregnant and after she gave birth, when her newborn baby was in the same room
■ Forcing her to wear her mother’s underwear before attacking her
■ Abusing her when she returned home from school for lunch, and
■ Jennifer feared her boyfriend’s baby she was carrying was her dad’s.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement, she lashed out at her abuser and said it was “unbearable” to hear her mother stand up for him.
She added: “Instead of trying to protect me, she protected him. 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.”
In the statement, read by prosecutor Dominic Mcginn, she said the first time she was abused her dad took her “innocence and childhood”.
TRUST
Jennifer added she was let down in the worst way possible and now finds it hard to trust people.
She said she was in fear of Berry who told her if she disclosed the abuse her siblings would be taken away.
Jennifer added she couldn’t concentrate in school and never went to college. She suffered panic attacks and depression from as far back as she could remember.
She explained: “I can’t say for definite but maybe it would have been different if I had been supported as a child.”
She described Berry’s behaviour as the “actions of a coward and evil”.
Jennifer said he must be “a sick man because I can’t think of how he could hurt me otherwise”.
She also said she had attempted suicide because of the abuse and thanked God she is still alive.
Jennifer declared: “I have finally got justice after 35 years. I am now strong and able to fight. I am not weak anymore.”
She added she hoped she saved at least one person from going through what she did by reporting her father to the gardai.
Berry, of Newtown Lawns, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, denied all the offences and was convicted following a trial earlier this year.
He has two previous convictions for minor offences. Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy noted Berry was 25 when he first abused his seven-year-old daughter.
She said the first time he raped her, Jennifer didn’t understand what had happened by “virtue of her youth”.
Ms Justice Murphy said a year when Berry was out of work, Jennifer was raped most days when she returned home from school for lunch. On one occasion when she refused to go home she was beaten up by Berry on her return from school.
She noted he continued to rape his daughter while she was pregnant with her first child.
The brute told his victim “the damage had now been done”.
The judge said Jennifer believed Berry was her son’s father until DNA testing during the Garda investigation confirmed her then boyfriend was the father.
Ms Justice Murphy said sexual abuse “ruptures wider family bonds” and added Jennifer has “spent her entire life fighting demons”.
STRENGTH
She has since learned that she has the strength and capacity to fight those demons.
The judge added: “He continually used her for his own sexual gratification and treated her as his property.”
During the horrific trial Garda Andrea Coonan told the court Jennifer was first abused by her father when he made her sit beside him while he watched pornography.
The abuse continued on a regular basis for about two years. Jennifer was nine years old when she was first raped by her father.
She had just had a bath and had come into her bedroom wrapped in a towel when he told her he was “going to make her a woman”.
Jennifer struggled but he pushed her down and raped her. He gave her a tissue and told her to clean herself up and “stop acting like a baby”.
Gda Coonan said Jennifer had told gardai he would take any
I finally got justice after 35 years. I’m able to fight and I’m not weak anymore
JENNIFER BERRY CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT YESTERDAY
He used her for his own sexual gratification & treated her as his property
MRS JUSTICE MURPHY
CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT
opportunity to assault her. She was also raped in wasteland which he would drive her to. Berry would then attack his daughter in the car.
Jennifer recalled such incidences occurred from the time she was in fourth class to when she was 16 years old.
She became pregnant in April 1994 by a boyfriend she was seeing at the time.
Horrifically, her father continued to rape her throughout the pregnancy. He raped her for the final time just two weeks after she had given birth.
Her baby son was in a basket in the room at the time.
Gda Coonan confirmed that this attack was so traumatic Jennifer was determined that it would never happen again.
She left the family home and never returned.