found guilty<\/a>\u00a0on 6 July of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe offences occurred on dates between 1971 and 1981 at a number of locations in south county Dublin, including Glenalbyn swimming pool in Stillorgan and Newpark Sports Centre in Blackrock.<\/p>\n
The four complainants were aged between eight and 15 at the time.<\/p>\n
The abuse took the form of kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration, forced oral sex and, in relation to one complainant, attempted rape.<\/p>\n
At a sentence hearing at the Central Criminal Court today, his defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC said Gibney now \u201caccepts the verdicts of the jury and will not appeal his conviction\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Gibney had achieved \u201csome deserved fame in relation to the training of persons for high achieving sports\u201d, but that this was some time ago and his reputation was now \u201centirely in tatters\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He asked the court to take into account that Gibney had pleaded guilty to some offences and that, besides his guilty pleas for those offences, he had no previous convictions. He also said that he is not in the fullness of his health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gageby said he was now \u201ca very different person\u201d than the one \u201cwho committed these offences against young children who were in his care\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
Victim impact statements<\/p>\n
Gibney was originally charged with 78 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape. He pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault, and not guilty to the remaining 74 counts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The jury were subsequently directed to return not guilty verdicts in relation to 33 counts of indecent assault related to two of the complainants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gibney was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault in relation to the first complainant on dates between 1975 and 1977. He was found not guilty of one count of indecent assault.<\/p>\n
The five indecent assault counts he pleaded guilty to relate to this complainant.<\/p>\n
In her victim impact statement, the woman began by thanking the garda\u00ed involved in her case. \u201cThey treated me with the utmost consideration. I cannot commend them highly enough,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She recalled being referred to as \u201cjust a witness for the state\u201d at one point, describing it as \u201ca profound and telling statement\u201d that had \u201copened my eyes to legal process and how I would be treated\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy God, I am a victim first and a witness for the state second,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said her traumatic memories \u201chave now been recounted by me to a room full of strangers\u201d and she criticised members of the media, whom she described as \u201clicking their chops salaciously imagining their headlines\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said that when she was abused by Gibney 50 years ago, she was a \u201cclueless, innocent child of the era\u201d and he was a \u201cmanipulative, brazen, cowardly predator\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said she had suffered \u201cshame, hurt and bewilderment for half a century\u201d in a \u201cfrozen nightmare\u201d that had \u201cnever resolved\u201d.<\/p>\n
Who would I be today had this manipulator not violated me? I don\u2019t and will never know.<\/p>\n
She said at the time of the abuse, she did not know counselling existed. \u201cHaving to share it with a stranger was unthinkable, so I buried it. I could not have borne the looks, the pity, the condemnations of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she was relieved that she never attended counselling because the counselling notes of the complainants in the case were sought, something she described as a \u201cfurther humiliation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do I feel? The overwhelming answer is that I feel angry. So angry. I don\u2019t feel angry very often, but this anger is primal for what George Gibney did to me 50 years ago and how it has affected my relationships,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said had Gibney not abused her, she \u201cwould not have had to face the revictimisation of the legal process\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe abuse at the time was at least private.\u201d<\/p>\n
She referenced how Gibney had pleaded guilty to five counts of abusing her. \u201cWhat was that about? A surprise for sure, but why only five. I still had to stand up and be grilled. Everything I said was the truth. My truth,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She went on to say: \u201cThe reward for being a victim is you lose out financially. So now being abused by George Gibney is hitting me in the wallet to add to the abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt is time to change the law so that it respects the dignity and courage of the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibney was also convicted of two counts of indecently assaulting the second complainant on dates between 1974 and 1979.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman read her victim impact statement to the court, but asked that her privacy be respected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In relation to the third complainant, Gibney was found guilty of 24 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape on dates between 1971 and 1975.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Turning to face Gibney as she began her victim impact statement, the woman said: \u201cThe burden I have carried for 54 years is now yours\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said \u201cthe shame, the guilt, the embarrassment\u201d that she had carried since he abused her was now his to carry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You were a person in authority. People respected and trusted you and you abused that position.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t show any respect for my wellbeing for my bodily autonomy or integrity. You took and took as you saw fit without a thought for the immediate and lifelong impact of your choices. I was just a sexual plaything for you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman said she never got to experience a happy childhood because of Gibney\u2019s abuse, describing how she had gone through nightmares, wetting the bed and self-isolation from her peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more than just loss of innocence. It was the destruction of a previously happy and healthy child.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described watching Gibney being \u201chero-worshipped\u201d and \u201clauded and feted by the establishment\u201d while \u201call the time knowing what you were and what you did\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said Gibney\u2019s \u201cdepraved behaviours\u201d impacted her ability to have relationships and robbed her of her potential.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSwimming was my absolute joy,\u201d she said. \u201cWhether or not I could\u2019ve been a good, great or mediocre swimmer is beside the point. I never got to find out because of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
In essence, you altered the trajectory of my life and absolutely not in the ways I wanted.<\/p>\n
The woman said she had spent decades trying to understand what happened to her. She said the decision to make her complaint was not easy, and that when she made it, she did not expect much to come from it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted an official record in my own words of your evilness,\u201d she said. \u201cI had no expectation that charges would be filed, that you would be arrested, the remote possibility of a trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said it was an \u201cexercise of release and liberation of years of secrets that would be the documentation of my reality and truth of your depredation\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She thanked the garda\u00ed involved in the case, saying they \u201clistened without judgment and they believed me\u201d.<\/p>\n
Concluding her statement still facing Gibney, she said: \u201cYou have to hear that whilst you may have tried to destroy me as a child, you failed.<\/p>\n
The world is going to know you now as a convicted, serial paedophile. I get to walk out of here free. Free of you.<\/p>\n
Gibney was found guilty of one count of indecently assaulting the fourth complainant on a date between 1980 and 1981.<\/p>\n
In her victim impact statement, the woman described the memories of what Gibney had done to her as \u201ca revolving gallery of images in my head\u201d.<\/p>\n
She recalled seeing the headlights of his car as he approached her, something she said \u201cdidn\u2019t make me feel like prey then. It does now.\u201d She also recalled him \u201cboring holes into my head through the glint in his glasses before he assaulted me\u201d.<\/p>\n
The woman said she had spent years \u201chidden behind the glass wall that undisclosed sexual abuse erects\u201d and recalled how she had never told her father about what Gibney had done to her.<\/p>\n
She said not telling him \u201calways troubled me\u201d and said she began having nightmares about Gibney during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said she had a nervous breakdown and subsequently started counselling. She said she contacted garda\u00ed because \u201cI was desperate\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said since she met the garda\u00ed, she\u2019s only had the odd nightmare and never about Gibney. She said she took real strength from the garda\u00ed \u201cbelieving me\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Justice Miche\u00e1l O\u2019Higgins said he would need time to consider \u201cthe powerful victim impact statements\u201d that had been made by the four women.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He remanded Gibney in custody for sentencing on 12 October.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOUR WOMEN WHO were sexually abused by George Gibney in the 1970s and 1980s have given victim impact…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42851,1457,54,228104,61,60,43,241025,15304],"class_list":["post-571356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-court","tag-courts","tag-george-gibney","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-sentence-hearing","tag-sexual-abuse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571356","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=571356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}