Latest news with #OliverBerry
BreakingNews.ie
27-05-2025
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Paedophile father fails to overturn conviction for abusing second daughter
A paedophile who raped one of his daughters while she was pregnant has failed in a bid to overturn his conviction for repeatedly sexually abusing her sister when the child was aged between seven and 12. Oliver Berry abused his daughter Sharon up to three times a week and also subjected the child to physical violence. She ran away from home when she was 12 years old. Advertisement Berry, of Newtown Lawns, Mullingar, had pleaded not guilty to 25 counts of indecent assault relating to Sharon Berry between 1980 and 1986, but was convicted following a trial in June 2023. He was handed a seven-year sentence by Ms Justice Patricia Ryan on July 25th, 2023, to run consecutive to a prison term he was already serving for the sexual abuse of another of his daughters, Jennifer Berry. The 68-year-old was previously jailed for 10 years in 2018, after a Central Criminal Court jury convicted him of 104 counts of both raping and sexually assaulting Jennifer between December 1982 and December 1994. She was aged between seven and 19 at the time. This sentence was subsequently increased by three years following a successful appeal by the State. Advertisement That trial heard he raped Jennifer throughout her pregnancy and while her two-week-old baby was in the same room. Berry maintained his innocence after the trial, and Ms Berry's mother, who has since separated from Berry, supported him and gave evidence in his defence during the trial. Berry had appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial judge had made an error in ruling that the complainant was competent to give evidence. It was further argued that the judge had erred in not permitting a competency hearing in respect of Ms Berry and in setting limits on the extent to which she could be cross-examined. Advertisement Dismissing his appeal on Tuesday, against his conviction for abusing Sharon, Ms Justice Tara Burns said none of the appellant's grounds of appeal had been upheld. Ms Justice Burns noted that the proceedings had a 'protracted history'. She said several trials ended with a discharge of the jury or an adjournment after queries were raised about the victim's capacity to give evidence. Further arguments arose over whether her initial complaints were reliable, having regard to a mental health issue which the victim disclosed during her evidence in the first trial. During her evidence in that trial, Ms Berry said she was under 'psychiatric care' and was on medication. Following further investigation, the victim's medical records were disclosed. Advertisement In dismissing Berry's appeal, Ms Justice Burns said the appellant received the victim's medical records relating to her mental health. She said it then became a matter for him whether to instruct an expert to determine the effect on the victim, if any, of the mental health conditions referred to in her medical records. She said this could have been used to attempt to lay a foundation in respect of the competency hearing or to challenge the reliability of the victim's original complaint, but this was not done. Ireland Will with handwritten changes did not amount to re... Read More The judge said the height of the challenge was an assertion that the complainant was not competent to give evidence based on a diagnosis of schizophrenia that the victim indicated she had been informed of some time prior to August 2008. Advertisement 'No evidence was led as to what the effect, if any, such a diagnosis could have on her ability to tell the truth,' she said. 'In those circumstances, the trial judge did not err in declining to hold a competency hearing.' Ms Justice Burns also dismissed the grounds of appeal related to the limitations put on the cross-examination, noting that the relevance of her mental health could only be from the perspective of her reliability as a witness. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at or visit Rape Crisis Help.
National Geographic
10-05-2025
- National Geographic
Try the Skeena, a budget alternative to Canada's famous Rocky Mountaineer
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). 'Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be making an unscheduled stop here to pick up another passenger,' announces train manager Alain Vermette. 'In fact, we need to back up. We just missed his stop.' Brakes squeal and gears grind as Via Rail Line 6 — better known as 'the Skeena' — slows, shifts into reverse and trundles back down the track. A minute later, a burly man in a baseball cap, hunting boots and jeans emerges from the forest, rucksack slung over his shoulder, a cheroot poking out from his grizzled grey beard. 'Afternoon, Alain,' he says, waving a greeting up to the conductor, who's leaning out of the train window. 'Running a little late today, ain'tcha?' The train pulls to a stop — but since there's no platform, Alain has to hop down onto the track and put down a set of portable steps. I follow him down, and together we help the man haul himself up through the train's side door. Soon the engine chugs into life and we're off again, hurtling onwards into an endless sea of pines. The Skeena stops to pick up hitchhikers in the backcountry. Photograph by Oliver Berry On Canada's railways, freight takes priority, so passenger trains must wait for them to pass. 'There's a joke that 'Via Rail' actually stands for 'Very Irregular Arrival',' quips train attendant Dany Clarissa. Photograph by Oliver Berry On the Skeena, request stops have always been part of the service. Completed in 1914 as the western end of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, the train travels through some of British Columbia's wildest backcountry, including the 24,700sq mile Great Bear Rainforest, the largest temperate forest on Earth. It's one of Canada's great wildernesses, a haven for wildlife including moose, elk, eagles and, as its name suggests, black and grizzly bears. The route begins on the Pacific coast in Prince Rupert, BC, and ends 720 miles further east high in the Rocky Mountains in Jasper, Alberta. Since it's often the only way to get from one backwoods town to the next, locals use it like a bus service, flagging the train down as it passes three times a week. It's been classed as an essential service since 1990, but if it was judged on purely economic terms, it would probably have been closed long ago. 'The Skeena is a lifeline for so many people,' Alain explains as we chat inside the train's compact cafe car, watching stereotypically Canadian vistas blur beyond the window: sprawling forests, turquoise lakes, snow-topped peaks. Originally from Quebec, with a Francophone lilt to his accent, he's dressed in his Via Rail uniform: short-sleeved shirt, navy waistcoat and trousers, a shiny pin badge of the Canadian flag tacked to his lapel. 'We call the people who live way out in the bush 'flaggers', and we keep an eye out as we pass their stop,' Alain continues. 'Usually they signal with a flagpole or a high-vis jacket hanging beside the track. But we stop for hikers, too; forest workers, hunters, people like that. Recently we picked up a family who'd got lost. It was lucky we found them, actually.' I'm riding the Skeena eastbound on a two-day, 21-hour journey from the Pacific to the Rockies, with an overnight stop in Prince George en route. The timetable is more guide than gospel — on Canada's railways, freight takes priority, so passenger trains must wait for them to pass. Delays are inevitable. 'There's a joke that 'Via Rail' actually stands for 'Very Irregular Arrival',' quips train attendant Dany Clarissa, on secondment from her regular gig on Via Rail's flagship route, The Canadian — 2,775-miles, linking Toronto and Vancouver. Sure enough, a minute later we pull into a siding to allow a gigantic goods train to rumble past, its steel boxcars daubed with graffiti. 'This one's only a small one, but they can be three miles long,' Dany says. Thankfully, the Skeena is one train where you're almost glad about the hold ups. The train has a retro elegance reminiscent of the 1950s. The carriages are made from functional brushed steel, with curved lines and stamped rivets that remind me of an Airstream trailer. Each passenger gets their own deep-padded seat in brown leather, with windows running along each side. At the train's rear is the cafe and lounge car, where a metal staircase climbs up to a viewing deck with bubble windows offering widescreen views of the Canadian wilderness as it zips by. Catch some of Canada's great wilderness while passing through the Great Bear Rainforest. It's a haven for wildlife including moose, elk, eagles and, as its name suggests, black grizzly bears. Photograph by Getty Images; Kenneth Canning And when it comes to scenery, there are surely few trains on the planet that can compare to the Skeena. One minute we're thrashing along the banks of a wild river, thundering with whitewater; the next we're rattling over a box bridge, teetering along the rim of a high-walled canyon or skirting the slopes of a glacier-studded mountain. Images from Canada's past flicker by like a film reel: rickety sawmills, abandoned salmon canneries, gold mines, ghost towns. Occasionally, we pass Indigenous communities, where First Nations peoples, including the Gitxsan, Kitselas and Tsimshian, have lived for thousands of years. Wildlife guest stars, too: I watch bald eagles circling over the treetops, elk grazing along the sidings, and a distant black bear ambling through a meadow, its fur freckled with dandelion blossom. As dusk falls, we trundle into the outskirts of Prince George — a former logging and fur-trading outpost that's now sometimes called BC's 'northern capital' — in search of our overnight accommodation. The next morning, the train departs at 8.15am sharp. Alain serves coffee and pastries as we run westwards along the Fraser River, watching the sunrise turn the water copper. Logging was once the prime industry in this part of BC, but most of the mills have long since been abandoned, leaving the forest to slowly regenerate. We trundle through little towns like Penny, Crescent Spur, McBride and Dunster — mostly just a few clapboard houses and a single-pump petrol station — slowly threading our way between two mountain ranges: the Cariboos, to the south; the Rockies to the north. Flurries of snow speckle the peaks like icing sugar. In a few months, the drifts will stand 10ft high or more, but the Skeena will run on regardless; the train's cowcatcher frame acts as a snow plough, Alain explains. For now, though, it's the perfect autumn day for sitting on a train. Blue skies shine overhead. The forest blazes with colour: golds, scarlets, chestnuts, tangerines. The hulking outline of Mount Robson, Canada's highest mountain, rises like a pyramid as we cross over the Alberta border and change time zones, from Pacific to Mountain time. We climb on, over the Continental Divide, and finally into the cradle of mountains around our terminus, Jasper, still scarred by the wildfire that swept through town in August 2024. As I step off the train onto the platform, breathing in pine-scented mountain air, I check the station clock. We're only 53 minutes late. By Skeena standards, that's pretty much right on time. The Skeena travels in each direction on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tickets cost from £160 per person. Published in the May 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK) To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
