George Gibney: The youngster intercourse abuser who turned Ireland’s Olympic swimming coach – The Irish Instances

To the present technology of swimmers, the title George Gibney could imply little or no. But within the Nineteen Seventies, Nineteen Eighties and into the Nineteen Nineties, the previous swimming coach had an oddly excessive profile in Ireland.

He was the go-to particular person in aquatic sport, a swimming coach who employed trendy strategies of lactate testing for coaching elite athletes in tips on how to compete at worldwide stage.

At that point Ireland was a rustic that didn’t have a 50m Olympic sized swimming pool.

Gibney even had a plan to construct such a pool at his Trojan swimming membership in south Dublin, which he arrange in 1976, having moved from the close by Glenalbyn swimming membership.

A Dubliner, Gibney was the quintessential press-friendly, can-do coach with massive plans and a membership the highest swimmers in Ireland naturally gravitated in direction of.

His profession curve was steep and by the point the Los Angeles Games in 1984 and the Seoul Olympics of 1988 got here round, he had risen by means of the ranks and established himself as Ireland’s Olympic coach.

[ The George Gibney trial: ‘Predatory’ abuser operated at heart of Irish swimmingOpens in new window ]

In 1991, he turned the Irish Amateur Swimming Association’s nationwide director of swimming.

It was throughout this time that Gibney coached Gary O’Toole, the generational swimmer, who punched by means of at worldwide stage, turning into the 200m breaststroke silver medal winner on the 1989 European Long Course Championships in Bonn.

It was O’Toole who triggered the preliminary investigations into his coach’s behaviour after a swimmer had confided in him that Gibney had tried to molest him.

Other swimmers then got here ahead to make statements to the gardaí. Gibney appeared within the Dún Laoghaire District Court in 1993, the place he confronted 27 prices of indecent assault in opposition to younger swimmers underneath the age of 15.

Those allegations have been efficiently halted by the Supreme Court in a judicial assessment when Gibney’s attorneys argued he shouldn’t stand trial as a result of size of time that had elapsed and the dearth of specificity of the fees.

No case was ever heard in Dublin. The Director of Public Prosecutions didn’t attraction the choice and Gibney went free, fleeing first to the Warrender swimming membership in Edinburgh, Scotland after which the US, the place he went to Colorado earlier than lastly settling in Orlando, Florida.

Then in February 2018, The Second Captains manufacturing firm at the side of the BBC launched a 40-minute podcast known as The George Gibney Case: 25 Years On. That turned a 10-part podcast collection, Where is George Gibney?, and after it, 4 complainants, who weren’t concerned within the Nineteen Nineties case, got here ahead and made statements to gardaí.

The State then sought Gibney’s extradition from the US.

For the extradition, Garda members travelled to the US to accompany him again to Ireland. The operation was run by the Garda Extradition Unit, which is a part of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

The 77-year-old was subsequently arrested on arrival in Dublin in July 2025. In an announcement on July twenty second, the Garda Press Office outlined {that a} man was being detained at a Garda station in Dublin.

Gibney appeared on the Criminal Courts of Justice later that morning. He was initially charged with 78 counts of indecent assault and one rely of tried rape.

He pleaded responsible to 5 counts of indecent assault, and never responsible to the remaining counts.

However, this week Judge Mícheál O’Higgins directed the jury to return not responsible verdicts in relation to 33 counts of indecent assault relating to 2 complainants.

It got here after authorized submissions have been made, with counsel concluding that the proof given didn’t help them. However, some 41 counts remained in play together with 40 indecent assaults and one tried rape throughout areas inside the State.

On Monday, he was convicted of sexually abusing 4 women. He can be sentenced on July twenty ninth.