A woman sexually abused by former swim coach George Gibney has said she gets to walk from court “free”, while the world will know him as a “convicted, serial paedophile”.
She told the Central Criminal Court that his abuse of her some 50 years ago caused “more than just a loss of innocence”; it brought about the “destruction of a previously happy and healthy childhood”.
“You were a person in authority. People respected and trusted you and you abused that position ... You took and took as you saw fit without a thought for the immediate or lifelong impact,” she told Gibney, who looked ahead into space from his wheelchair.
The woman was one of four found by a jury to have been abused by the coach as girls between the ages of eight and 13 about 50 years ago.
RM Block
A jury earlier this month found the 78-year-old guilty 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.
[ The George Gibney trial: ‘Predatory’ abuser operated at heart of Irish swimmingOpens in new window ]
Gibney’s senior counsel, Patrick Gageby, told the court on Monday that the former coach accepts the jury’s verdict and will not appeal against his convictions.
“You have a very different person in front of you than the person who committed these offences against very young children in his care,” counsel said as part of submissions to Judge Mícheál O’Higgins during a sentencing hearing.
The Director of Public Prosecutions contended that the offences fall within the upper range of offending due in part to Gibney’s authoritative position and the age of the victims.
The judge said he would take time to consider the victim-impact statements delivered by the four victims. He remanded Gibney in custody pending sentencing in October.
The trial heard Gibney gave some of the girls lifts to swimming and abused them in his car. Further abuse of two sisters happened in his home when they were babysitting his children.
The assaults included French kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration and forced oral sex.
In a victim-impact statement, one of the survivors said she needed psychological intervention from the age of nine, had nightmares, isolated herself and self-harmed due to his actions.
Sports were a big part of her family, and swimming was her “absolute joy”. She said he robbed her potential and she never found out if she would have ended up a good, great or mediocre athlete. He changed the trajectory of her life, and “absolutely not in the ways I wanted”, she said.
She had to watch him being “lauded” and “hero worshipped” by the establishment while knowing the truth about his “evilness”.
“The world is going to know you now as a convicted serial paedophile, while I get to walk out of here free, free of you,” she said.
Another survivor said she finally felt “safe and championed” after being believed by gardaí when she reported the abuse in recent years. She outlined to the court how her life has been negatively shaped by Gibney’s actions. She became “almost unreachable” and an “observer” who never fully participated in life.
A third woman said her 13-year-old self has been “frozen in time” and she is not sure if she will ever be released. Her overwhelming emotion was anger at what Gibney did to her decades ago and how this has affected her relationships. She said the trial was “traumatising”, and she criticised press coverage of it. The law needs to be changed so it respects the dignity and courage of victims, she said.
The fourth woman read a victim-impact statement but asked for her privacy to be respected.
Gibney had been charged with 79 counts. At the outset of the trial he pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault, while the judge threw out 33 charges after the prosecution’s evidence was heard. The jury acquitted Gibney of one indecent assault count.
