From 'Where is George Gibney?' to guilty verdict for abusing young girls

Isabel Hayes and Eimear Dodd

On the first day of the long-awaited trial of the former Irish national swim coach, it was no longer a case of "Where is George Gibney?" but rather "Who has heard of George Gibney?"

On a hot June day in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, the first hurdle in empanelling a jury for George Gibney – extradited from Florida last year, decades after he was first accused of abusing young girls – was finding 12 jurors who did not recognise his name.

The award-winning BBC podcast, Where is George Gibney, which aired in 2020 and outlined the hunt for the septuagenarian former swim coach, was of concern to defence barrister Patrick Gageby SC. This podcast had, he noted, acted as a catalyst for some of the complainants in this case coming forward.

It was decided by all parties that the podcast should not be mentioned to the 200-strong jury panel. Instead, the defence proposed that anyone who had ever heard of George Gibney should be told not to serve – something prosecution barrister, James Dwyer SC, noted drily would “eliminate large swathes of the jury panel”.

In the end, empanelling a jury took about the same length of time as usual, albeit with six men and six women who were somewhat younger than the average jury.

Gibney (now 77) appeared in court in a wheelchair - a much-diminished figure from the coach who once dominated the world of Irish swimming. He wore a loose red shell jacket every day of the trial along with tracksuit bottoms. He often had a string of chunky rosary beads wrapped around his left hand. There was no one in court to support him.

The Indictment

The court heard there were 79 counts to be put to Gibney, comprising 78 counts of indecent assault of the four complainants between 1971 and 1981, along with one count of attempted rape of one complainant when they were all swimmers under his tutelage.

The abuse was alleged to have taken place in Glenalbyn swimming pool, Stillorgan, and Newpark Sports Centre, Blackrock, where Gibney helped set up Trojan swimming club to “great excitement” in 1976, the court heard.

He was also alleged to have indecently assaulted the girls in various locations, including his home in Killiney, their home, and in his car at various locations around South County Dublin while giving them lifts to and from training.

The abuse took the form of kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration and forced oral sex. One of his victims was as young as eight or nine years old when the abuse started.

As the 78 counts were put to Gibney in front of the newly-empanelled jury, he intoned “not guilty” 10 times until he reached count 11, at which point his solicitor appeared at his side to point at the sheaf of indictment papers in his hands.

“Guilty,” he said. And again, four more times.

Exactly 50 years after the crimes, without ceremony or even a change in expression, Gibney had just admitted five counts of indecently assaulting one of his victims on sample dates between May and September 1976.

As the indictment moved to count 16 and beyond, he resumed his original stance.

“Not guilty.”

The First Complainant

The first complainant was the woman to whom Gibney's five guilty pleas pertained. He faced 29 counts of indecently assaulting her on dates between 1975 and 1977, later reduced to 13 counts.

She described how Gibney knew her parents and was an occasional visitor to her house. She babysat for him, and he gave her and her younger sister – the second complainant in the case – lifts to training.

She said Gibney first sexually assaulted her when she was 13 at a disco at Newpark Sports Centre when he took her by the hand, led her to his office, pushed her against his desk and started kissing and touching her.

Gibney went on to abuse her at various locations - in her bedroom at night, in the car on the way to training with her sister in the back seat, in his office at Newpark and in his home when she was babysitting his children.

Shown a photo taken at a swimming event abroad, she identified Gibney in his signature “dark glasses” alongside his wife and her younger sister.

She recounted one incident when Gibney was abusing her in his office after training, and she could see her mother's car through the heavy net curtains parked outside waiting for her.

She said the abuse “petered out” when she was around 14. She confided in two friends, but otherwise kept it secret until her sister told her in 2020 that she was going to the gardaí and she decided to come forward too.

“I thought, now is the time.”

The Second Complainant

Recounting her evidence to the jury, the first complainant's younger sister told the court: “Swimming was my life.”

But this all ended after Gibney indecently assaulted her one day in the changing rooms at Newpark at the age of 13, the court heard.

It was the second time he allegedly indecently assaulted her - with the first occurring in his home when she was babysitting, aged around 11.

When asked if she was good at swimming, she replied: “I think I wasn't bad. Gary O’Toole was in our club and in comparison with him, I was very average. I might have been good.”

She said she was “so ashamed” as a child in relation to what Gibney had done to her in “Good Catholic Ireland”.

When defence counsel put it to her that “nothing improper occurred”, she replied: “I happen to be the person who was there. I am happy with my own opinion that I was inappropriately touched.”

She eventually returned to the sport she loved later in life. “I’m sad I gave up. This accompanied me for over 50 years.

“I didn’t want to give up, but I was lost on earth.”

The Third Complainant

This woman said she was around eight or nine when Gibney started “paying attention to me” and outlined how he abused her on a regular basis over a four-year period from then on.

Gibney faced 41 counts of indecently assaulting this complainant and one count of attempted rape on dates between 1971 and 1975, with the jury directed to find him not guilty on 17 of the indecent assault charges towards the end of the trial.

The woman said Gibney would enter the girls’ changing room and “use any excuse to put his hands on your body” including readjusting straps and putting his fingers under her swimsuit.

She said Gibney started offering her lifts as she walked home, and the abuse progressed from kissing to inappropriate touching, digital penetration, forced masturbation and oral sex.

The abuse culminated in Gibney attempting to rape the then 12-year-old in a changing room at Newpark during a swim camp in August 1975.

She never returned, with a letter from the camp shown to the jury to that effect. As a result, the exact date of the allegation was identified – something the court heard was unusual given its antiquity.

Four times during cross-examination, defence counsel put it to the woman that she “still took the lifts” despite the alleged abuse, leading her to eventually answer: “Yes, naive and stupid as it was.”

When Mr Gageby put it to her that there was “no indecency or molesting” on Gibney's part, the woman replied: “You're trying to say I'm lying, is that what you're saying?

“Well, you're wrong.”

The Fourth Complainant

The fourth complainant said swimming was “more or less mandatory” in her family because her parents were keen that their children learn the skill.

Gibney faced one count of indecently assaulting her in his car when he gave her a lift to training one day when she was aged 13. She said she told Gibney to take his hands off her or she would tell her father.

The court heard Gibney responded along the lines of “you're too ugly anyway” before starting the car.

She said that while she continued to swim, she did not attend early morning training sessions after the incident.

Defence counsel put it to the woman that Gibney was “very clear” he didn't do anything to her.

“Is that a question?” the woman replied.

“He absolutely did.”

'Powerful figure in swimming'

The jury was not told about Gibney's extradition from Florida, just that when he was arrested he replied to some of the charges against him.

“Unless I'm losing my mind, I never heard of her,” he said of the third complainant, who he was accused of abusing over a four-year period.

Towards the end of the trial, the jury was directed to return not guilty verdicts in relation to 33 counts of indecent assault pertaining to the first and third complainant due to an “absence of evidence to support them”. This left 41 counts for the jury to consider.

Closing the prosecution’s case, Mr Dwyer noted that while Gibney admitted he “committed the disgusting crime of child abuse” by pleading to five counts in relation to the first complainant, this “doesn’t prove he did it on other occasions”.

However, he said Gibney’s MO was “brazen”, noting he was a “powerful figure in swimming” in Ireland in the 1970s. Mr Dwyer also asked jurors to consider the “inherent unlikelihood” of four women independently giving accounts which similarly described a “predatory abuser”.

In his closing speech, Mr Gageby said that “the abuse by a person in authority of children is a criminal offence and revolting”, adding that nothing the defence said was to “excuse any misconduct”.

He told jurors that the question of consent was not an issue from the defence’s perspective in the case. He suggested there was a “lack of curiosity” in the investigation, noting there were no photos of locations where these incidents allegedly took place, and he pointed to what he said were inconsistencies in the women’s evidence.

The jury was not swayed, returning 40 guilty verdicts today/yesterday (MON) after over seven hours of deliberations in the wake of the 11-day trial.

After the verdicts were read, an expressionless Gibney was taken from the courtroom in a wheelchair with ‘Midlands Prison’ written on it.

The question of Where is George Gibney had finally been answered: in the custody of the Irish Prison Service.