George Gibney has been described in court by his victims as a “manipulative, brazen and cowardly predator” who will be forever known to the world as a “convicted serial paedophile”.
The former national swimming and Olympic coach was found guilty three weeks ago of sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s, and attempting to rape one of them
Gibney, who is now 78 years old, was extradited from the US where he lived for over 30 years, and convicted of 39 counts of indecent assault and one of attempted rape.
He denied a total of 74 charges but pleaded guilty to five other counts of abusing one of the children between May and September 1976.
The court was told that Gibney now accepts the verdicts of the court, will not appeal his conviction and will not receive any visits in prison.
In court, four of his victims spoke of the impact Gibney has had on their lives.
The first described herself as a “clueless, innocent child of the era”, who retains “intensely personal and traumatic memories” of her abuse over 50 years ago.
She said she has harboured a “secret shame, hurt and bewilderment” for over half a century, in a “frozen nightmare” that “never resolved” after she had been “groomed by a paedophile, with inappropriate, warped and bizarre sexual experiences”.
She said she does not know and will never know who she would be today had she not been violated.
Gibney, she said, abused and discarded her.
She said she did not tell her parents but suspects they knew or strongly suspected.
She described them as “another set of victims”.
“Adults, helpless to do anything” because of “the time we lived in holy Catholic Ireland”, she said.
She also said she felt angry the abuse had “clouded every aspect” of her relationships, and angry “at what I had to do to get this court”.
She described the legal process as a “revictimisation”, “humiliation” and ” a public outing”.
She said she was relieved that she had not attended counselling because she had no notes when they were sought and therefore avoided “further humiliation”.
She asked why Gibney only pleaded guilty to five charges because she still had to “stand up to be grilled by prosecution and defence”.
She said she had been told she was “just a witness for the State” and that it was “time to change the law so it respects dignity and courage of the victims”.
She also thanked the prosecution lawyers and the gardaí, who she said were professional, empathetic and always treated her with the utmost consideration.
‘Record of your evilness’
The second victim whom Gibney had abused as a nine-year-old child, turned and faced him and spoke directly to him in court as he sat impassively in his wheelchair.
She told him he was a person in authority who had abused the respect and trust placed in him and that the burden of shame, guilt and embarrassment she had carried for 54 years was now his.
She said she had suffered self-isolation, self-harm and never got to fully experience a carefree childhood.
She had psychiatric intervention from nine years old but had been “powerless to verbalise” her “torment and unhappiness”, she said.
Gibney, she said, presided over “the destruction of a previously happy and healthy child”.
She added that she has “carried the repercussions” since.
“I changed my clothing, butchered my hair, covered body in most unattractive ways, taking refuge in drink, anger and a repeated pattern of dysfunctional sex activity which harmed my ability to form relationships,” she said.
She said she watched him through college years being “lauded and hero worshipped by the establishment, knowing the truth of who and what you were”.
She said she left Ireland as soon as possible over 40 years ago.
She told him she spent decades trying to understand what had happened to her and that he had “altered the trajectory of my life” through his “manipulation, grooming and deviant behaviour”.
This, she said, affected her and her family decades later.
She said she had a mental breakdown on her child’s ninth birthday because that was when Gibney began abusing her.
“Your shadow hung over a child who didn’t even know of your existence,” she told him.
The mention of his name six years ago reduced her to tears and left her feeling “violated, dirty and dismissed” like she did when she was a child, she said.
She said when she made her complaint to garda officers Amy Kelly and Jonathan Hayes on 20 July 2022, she did not expect much to come of it.
“I wanted an official record of your evilness,” she said.
She said: “I had no expectation of arrest, extradition, trial.
“It was an exercise in release and liberation of secrets that there would be documentation of my reality and truth of your depredation.”
The gardaí, she said, “listened without judgement and they believed me”.
“The world is going to know you as a convicted serial paedophile,” she told him, adding “while I get to walk out here free, free of you”.
‘Emotionally battered’
The third victim also told of the trauma that Gibney had caused her and of the thousands of euro she had spent on psychotherapy.
The trauma, she said, “remains in my body”.
She stopped swimming as a child, something she was good at and did not start again until she was 40 years old.
She also said that because of Gibney, she had to go through a trial where “old wounds reopened” and where she had been “betrayed and humiliated by the press” and Gibney.
She criticised the fact the law allows the court to demand counselling notes, insisting that the “trauma and details of my marriage problems have no place in the offices of the DPP”.
She said she felt “emotionally battered” and holds Gibney responsible.
The fourth and final victim described the abuse Gibney inflicted upon her as “a revolving gallery of images ever present in my head”.
She said she feels now she was “prey” for Gibney, adding that after the abuse she took up smoking and now has emphysema.
She said she had nightmares about Gibney during the Covid-19 lockdown, did not eat for days and suffered a nervous breakdown before opening up to a psychiatrist.
She said she contacted the gardaí because “I was desperate”, adding that she took courage from the fact they believed her.
She said she did not know the other complainants before the trial.
‘Powerful victim impact statements’
Gibney’s defence counsel Patrick Gageby said Gibney’s reputation was now “in tatters”.
He has no previous convictions but is not in the fullness of his health and there are no issues with him in custody.
Gibney, he said, was now a “very different person from the person who committed these offences against young children in his care”.
Mr Justice Michael P O’Higgins said he would take time to consider “the powerful victim impact statements”.
He remanded Gibney in custody for sentencing on 12 October.