FORMER SWIMMING COACH George Gibney has been sentenced to 15-and-a-half years in prison for sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s.
The 78-year-old was convicted of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape in July following a two-week trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Sentencing him this afternoon, Mr Justice Mícheál O’Higgins said the offences were part of a pattern of systemic offending which violated the rights of four young children over a lengthy period of time.
He said they were predatory in nature and involved a “gross abuse of his position as a swimming coach”, a role which he used “to access and then assault defenceless children in his care”.
The judge said that each of the four complainants had described “in clear and moving terms the impact his offending had had upon their lives”.
He set a headline sentence of 12 years for the attempted rape, but reduced it by two years after taking mitigating factors into account.
For the 39 indecent assaults, the judge said setting a headline sentence was more complicated as they were not all the same.
Advertisement
The judge said he took the view that all of the counts are serious “because they are part of a sustained pattern of systemic offending carried out repeatedly by a manipulative predator on defenceless young children over a number of years”.
He set a headline sentence of 24 months for each indecent assault, reducing this to a net of 20 months.
The judge said he would make four of the indecent assault counts consecutive to reflect the harm done to the four separate victims, which amount to a combined headline sentence of 16 years and eight months. He said using consecutive sentencing was the exception rather than the rule, but this case merited such an approach.
Mr Justice O’Higgins suspended the final 14 months on strict terms, including Gibney’s age, meaning that Gibney will serve 15 years and six months in prison.
Gibney was originally charged with 78 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape.
He pleaded guilty before the jury to five counts of indecent assault, and not guilty to the remaining 74 counts.
The jurors were directed to return not guilty verdicts in relation to 33 counts of indecent assault relating to two complainants following legal submissions and “in the absence of evidence to support them”.
The 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.
The four complainants were aged between eight and 15 at the time.
The abuse took the form of kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration, forced oral sex and, in relation to one complainant, attempted rape.
The trial heard evidence over seven days from the four complainants, as well as a number of other witnesses.
The four women gave victim impact statements at a sentence hearing in July. One woman described Gibney as a “manipulative, brazen, cowardly predator” who had abused her when she was an innocent child.
Another woman described having to see the former Olympic swimming coach being “hero-worshipped” by the establishment after he had abused her, and said that the world would now know him as a “convicted, serial paedophile”.
In her victim impact statement, another woman said she had spent years “hidden behind the glass wall that undisclosed sexual abuse erects” and described the strength she took from the gardaí “believing me”.
'Manipulative predator' swim coach George Gibney jailed for 15 years for sexual abuse of four girls
LAST UPDATE | 48 mins ago
FORMER SWIMMING COACH George Gibney has been sentenced to 15-and-a-half years in prison for sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s.
The 78-year-old was convicted of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape in July following a two-week trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Sentencing him this afternoon, Mr Justice Mícheál O’Higgins said the offences were part of a pattern of systemic offending which violated the rights of four young children over a lengthy period of time.
He said they were predatory in nature and involved a “gross abuse of his position as a swimming coach”, a role which he used “to access and then assault defenceless children in his care”.
The judge said that each of the four complainants had described “in clear and moving terms the impact his offending had had upon their lives”.
He set a headline sentence of 12 years for the attempted rape, but reduced it by two years after taking mitigating factors into account.
For the 39 indecent assaults, the judge said setting a headline sentence was more complicated as they were not all the same.
The judge said he took the view that all of the counts are serious “because they are part of a sustained pattern of systemic offending carried out repeatedly by a manipulative predator on defenceless young children over a number of years”.
He set a headline sentence of 24 months for each indecent assault, reducing this to a net of 20 months.
The judge said he would make four of the indecent assault counts consecutive to reflect the harm done to the four separate victims, which amount to a combined headline sentence of 16 years and eight months. He said using consecutive sentencing was the exception rather than the rule, but this case merited such an approach.
Mr Justice O’Higgins suspended the final 14 months on strict terms, including Gibney’s age, meaning that Gibney will serve 15 years and six months in prison.
Gibney was originally charged with 78 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape.
He pleaded guilty before the jury to five counts of indecent assault, and not guilty to the remaining 74 counts.
The jurors were directed to return not guilty verdicts in relation to 33 counts of indecent assault relating to two complainants following legal submissions and “in the absence of evidence to support them”.
The 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.
The four complainants were aged between eight and 15 at the time.
The abuse took the form of kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration, forced oral sex and, in relation to one complainant, attempted rape.
The trial heard evidence over seven days from the four complainants, as well as a number of other witnesses.
The four women gave victim impact statements at a sentence hearing in July. One woman described Gibney as a “manipulative, brazen, cowardly predator” who had abused her when she was an innocent child.
Another woman described having to see the former Olympic swimming coach being “hero-worshipped” by the establishment after he had abused her, and said that the world would now know him as a “convicted, serial paedophile”.
In her victim impact statement, another woman said she had spent years “hidden behind the glass wall that undisclosed sexual abuse erects” and described the strength she took from the gardaí “believing me”.
Written by Jane Moore and posted on TheJournal.ie
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Central Criminal Court Court Courts george gibney Sentencing none