Flowers rest near the home where the bodies of sisters Chloe Berry, 6, and Aubrey Berry, 4, were found by police on Boxing Day in the community of Oak Bay in Victoria, B.C.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
The father of two young sisters found dead near Victoria on Christmas Day had been at the centre of a custody battle, in which an increasingly caustic separation was marked by allegations of violence and inappropriate touching involving one child, according to a court ruling earlier this year.
British Columbia's Representative for Children and Youth said he is aware of the killings, in light of the family's past contacts with the provincial children's ministry, but he won't consider whether to open a formal review until after the police investigation is finished.
In the late afternoon of Dec. 25, Oak Bay police found Chloe Berry, 6, and Aubrey Berry, 4, dead in a ground-floor apartment in the Victoria-area community. Police say a man was found injured at the residence and taken to hospital. There are no other suspects, but police have not identified the injured man or recommended charges in a case they say is a double homicide.
Friends of the family say the two were with their father, Andrew Berry, on Christmas Day and the police were called after he failed to return them to their mother, Sarah Cotton, at noon. That visit was laid out in a parenting schedule created by a B.C. Supreme Court judgment delivered on May 31 this year.
As the couple's common-law relationship soured in the summer of 2013, Mr. Berry said he would "blow up the house" if he didn't receive a full breakdown of the household expenses, according to the court ruling. The ruling said Ms. Cotton described him as looking "angry and crazed."
The pair's relationship ended with a restraining order filed against Mr. Berry for allegedly pulling the covers off their bed, jumping on her and pinning her before getting in his car and driving away as the police were called, according to the judgment.
Several months later, Mr. Berry regained part-time custody of his two young children, but the provincial Ministry of Children and Family Development opened an investigation two years later, after the younger child said "things to the mother which raised a concern that the father may have been touching [her] inappropriately," the ruling stated.
Ministry officials and police conducted an investigation and Mr. Berry testified that he tickled the girl, but not on her vagina, and may have touched her genitals while drying her after a bath, the judgment stated. The investigation concluded that he had acted inappropriately, but not with criminal intent and he was allowed to continue having the girls visit him.
In January, 2016, another ministry investigation was opened when the mother discovered a soft spot on the head of the younger child, the ruling stated. As a result of that investigation, Mr. Berry's visits were supervised for a short period. The ministry had also recommended that Mr. Berry take parenting courses, which he failed to do, according to the ruling.
"The father's failure to focus on what is in the children's best interests regarding these activities and other questions is troubling and demonstrates poor judgment. It also demonstrates an inability to work co-operatively in parenting the girls," the ruling said.
Yet, Justice Victoria Gray noted Mr. Berry's "displays of poor judgment" were not enough to deprive the children of time with their father.
"This is not a case where family violence is a significant factor for determining parenting arrangements," the judge wrote. "However, minimizing contact between the parents will be better for the children as well as the parents."
On Thursday, the provincial ministry could not confirm details on prior investigations of the family, citing privacy concerns. A statement said the child-welfare workers look into each and every report of parental wrongdoing and assess the risk to the children before taking the most appropriate course of action.
Bernard Richard, B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth, said his organization has been in touch with the provincial ministry of Children and Family Development about its past interactions with the family and has received preliminary information from the coroner. But, by law, his office must wait until the police and coroner finish their investigations before launching its own review into whether systemic problems contributed to the deaths.
"It would be really premature for me to be give any kind of assurance that we will investigate … but we're interested in whether or not services, or the lack of services, played a role," he said in an interview.
The mayor of Oak Bay released a statement Wednesday on the tragedy. "There are no words to express the sadness we feel for the loss of these two young girls and how to truly comfort the profound grief of their family," Nils Jensen said.