{"id":570478,"date":"2026-07-27T14:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/570478\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T14:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:01:10","slug":"george-gibney-due-back-before-court-for-sentencing-hearing-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/570478\/","title":{"rendered":"George Gibney due back before court for sentencing hearing \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Former Irish Olympic swimming coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/george-gibney\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/george-gibney\/\">George Gibney<\/a> is due back before the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-criminal-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-criminal-court\/\">Central Criminal Court<\/a> today following his conviction for sexually abusing four girls about 50 years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 77-year-old\u2019s sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin at 2pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A jury earlier this month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2026\/07\/06\/george-gibney-trial-ex-sports-coach-found-guilty-of-abusing-four-girls-over-50-years-ago-in-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2026\/07\/06\/george-gibney-trial-ex-sports-coach-found-guilty-of-abusing-four-girls-over-50-years-ago-in-ireland\/\">found him guilty<\/a> of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape on dates between 1971 and 1981 at various locations, including at two swimming pools in south Co Dublin. The attempted rape took place in a changing room at Newpark Sports Centre in Blackrock, Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The girls were aged between eight and 13 when they were abused by the coach. As women hearing the guilty verdicts, they cried and hugged their supporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The trial heard Gibney gave some of the girls lifts to swimming classes and abused them in his car. Further abuse of two sisters happened in his home when they were babysitting his children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The assaults included kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration and forced oral sex. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Gibney, who attended his trial in a wheelchair, had been charged with 79 counts. At the outset of the trial he pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault, while the judge dismissed  33 charges after the prosecution\u2019s evidence was heard. The jury acquitted Gibney of one indecent assault count. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Due to the nature of the charges, Gibney was described as a sports coach in media reports during the trial. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He was a high-profile figure in Irish swimming from the 1970s to the 1990s. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2026\/07\/07\/george-gibney-faces-justice-after-50-years-of-evasion\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Gibney faces justice after 50 years of evasionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He had been charged with counts of indecent assault in 1993, but this prosecution was halted by the Supreme Court on foot of a challenge by Gibney. Gibney moved abroad after the prosecution collapsed, fleeing first to a swimming club in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then to the United States, where he moved to Colorado initially before finally settling in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Gibney was extradited from the US last year after four new complainants came forward to garda\u00ed in the wake of a 10-part podcast made by Second Captains in partnership with the BBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Irish Olympic swimming coach George Gibney is due back before the Central Criminal Court today following his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42851,615,228104,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-570478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-dublin","tag-george-gibney","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}