From corporate titan to jailed paedophile

As Ron Brierley hunched over his chair at his sentencing on Thursday, it was hard to reconcile the pitiful image with that of the swashbuckling corporate titan from days gone by.

Along with buccaneers like Robert Holmes a Court, John Spalvins, Christopher Skase and Alan Bond, Brierley shook up the business landscape in the final decades of the 20th century.