Sentencing arguments for former NWT teacher ‘oceans apart’

Warning: This report references incidents of sexual violence against children. Mental health supports are available.

One of Neil Barry’s former students says being sexually assaulted by his basketball coach as a teenager “changed me a lot.”

In a victim impact statement read aloud in NWT Supreme Court on Thursday, the man, who was once a promising young basketball player, stated he had trouble with school, missed sports practices and turned to alcohol “pretty hard” to cope following the incidents with Barry.

“Basketball was my favourite sport,” the man stated, adding he stopped playing because of Barry’s sexual abuse.

“I’m still healing from this.”

Following a jury trial, Barry was convicted in May of two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual exploitation against two teenaged boys in Yellowknife and Tulita between 2006 and 2010.

In total, Barry had been accused of sexually abusing four teenaged boys in the NWT. The jury acquitted Barry of an additional count of sexual assault.

Barry, who was a teacher in Tulita and Fort Simpson between 2007 and 2017, had denied all allegations of sexual violence.

The two boys Barry was convicted of assaulting, now men, were aged between 15 and 18 at the time of the incidents. Barry, who is now 48, was then their teacher and basketball coach, whom they viewed as a mentor and role model.

One of the men testified that Barry had performed oral sex on him while he was sleeping without his consent. He said Barry had kissed him on the lips on around 10 occasions, when they were alone in a dark room with the door closed.

Another man said he was asleep and awoke to Barry touching his testicles.

When he confronted Barry about the incident the next day and said he planned to report him, the man said Barry told him no one would believe him. Some time later, the man said, Barry again sexually abused him.

The men’s identities are protected by a publication ban.

‘An honest-to-goodness nightmare’

One of the men Barry was convicted of assaulting testified during the trial that he felt violated, scared, and lost respect for Barry. He said it also brought back trauma from when his grandfather shared what had happened to him in residential school.

In a statement to the court, the man’s wife wrote that Barry’s crimes have had a profound impact on her family and her husband has struggled with trust and addiction issues as a result.

“I feel as though I’m living an honest-to-goodness nightmare,” she wrote.

As a mentor, coach and teacher, the woman said Barry should have been a safe person for her husband. Instead, she said, Barry used his position to exploit him and took his innocence and childhood.

“Neil Barry did not care about the damage he was doing to my husband,” she wrote.

The man’s parents wrote that they had trusted Barry. They said his crimes have caused emotional, mental, physical and spiritual harm to their family.

“No parents should ever have to go through this,” they wrote.

The parents said Barry had taken away their son’s power as a youth but now he was taking that power back.

High degree of moral blameworthiness

During the sentencing hearing, Crown prosecutor Angie Paquin argued that Barry should be sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.

She asked that he be placed on the sex offender registry for 20 years and be banned from possessing firearms for 10 years after he is released from prison.

Paquin said Barry had a high degree of moral blameworthiness for his crimes and few mitigating factors, warranting an 11-year sentence.

She noted he had abused his position of trust and authority and sexually abused two boys on more than one occasion.

“He simply took advantage of situations where vulnerable boys were at his disposal,” she said, adding that Barry had sexually assaulted the boys when they were sleeping, which she described as “their most vulnerable state.”

Paquin further said Barry, who is not Indigenous nor from the NWT, had taken advantage of Indigenous boys in a remote northern community. She referenced the devastating impacts of colonization and residential schools in the North and said Barry’s crimes further negatively impacted the boys, their families and the community.

“The marks on the Indigenous people of the Northwest Territories are still fresh,” she said, noting it was not that long ago that the last residential school in the North closed.

“Neil Barry is very well aware of the challenges these communities are facing.”

Paquin said Barry’s prospects for rehabilitation are unclear as he did not consent to be assessed for his risk of reoffending. She said there is also “a huge question mark” regarding whether Barry now takes responsibility for his actions.

Publicity and stigma

Barry’s lawyer, Eamon O’Keeffe, argued a sentence of four to five years’ imprisonment would be appropriate for his client based on sentences in other “reasonably similar” cases.

He said Barry had been out of jail on a release order for about four years without any difficulties.

O’Keeffe said in sentencing Barry, the court should take into consideration “collateral consequences” that have resulted from his arrest and conviction.

He said that included the permanent end to Barry’s teaching career.

As well as teaching in the NWT, Barry worked as a teacher in Meander River, Alberta and Coral Harbour, Nunavut. He moved to High Prairie, Alberta in 2017, where he worked as a principal until his arrest in June 2021.

Since moving back to his home province of Prince Edward Island, O’Keeffe said Barry has struggled to find any employment, save for some work he was offered by his brother.

O’Keeffe also made much of the fact that Barry’s case has been covered by national media as well as local media in the NWT and PEI.

When you Google Barry’s name, O’Keeffe said, “pages and pages and pages” of results come up. Comparatively, he said, 80 to 90 percent of his client’s cases aren’t covered by the media.

“It’s unusual for cases to be reported in the media at all,” he argued.

Paquin noted it was unclear how many of O’Keeffe’s other cases involve teachers or coaches sexually abusing youth, saying those cases often make the news.

O’Keeffe acknowledged that publicity and stigma “naturally flow” from these types of crimes and are not a substitute for formal punishment from the court.

O’Keeffe further said that while Barry is imprisoned, his two children – who are aged 18 and 19 – and his ailing mother will be deprived of him.

He filed eight letters of support from Barry’s family and friends. He said his client has a support network, which is a positive sign for his reintegration into the community once he is released from jail.

Paquin said some of the people who wrote letters in support of Barry were in denial of his crimes.

‘A very difficult case’

Justice David Gates is expected to deliver his sentencing decision on Wednesday, September 10.

In court on Friday, he said the sentences proposed by the Crown and defence were “oceans apart” and he had concerns with both.

Gates said the sentence proposed by the defence was low while the Crown’s proposed sentence was “at the top of the range.”

“This is a very difficult case,” he said.