George Gibney was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin
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Former Irish Olympic swimming coach George Gibney has been sentenced to 16 years and eight months after being found guilty of indecently assaulting four girls and attempting to rape one of them.
Gibney, 78, was found guilty of the indecent assault charges and the attempted rape of one of them in a changing room when she was 12.
He pleaded guilty to five charges of indecently assaulting a girl in Ireland in 1976, but denied several other charges involving assaults on girls aged between eight and 15 at various locations from 1974 to 1981.
Earlier in the year, a jury returned guilty verdicts on 40 charges stemming from incidents in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gibney has lived in the US for years and was arrested on foot in Florida on an Irish extradition warrant.
Judge Michael O’Higgins sentenced him to 16 years and eight months, with the final 14 months suspended, at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.
During the 1980s, Ireland achieved relatively little on the international swimming stage, yet Gibney rose to become one of the sport’s most prominent figures in the country.
He founded the Trojan swimming club in south Dublin and built a reputation coaching young talent at pools across the city.
His standing was such that he served as Ireland’s head coach at two successive Olympic Games, in Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul four years later.
When allegations of his abuse came to light, Gibney initially faced 27 charges of indecency and carnal knowledge.
In 1993, Ireland’s Supreme Court determined that too much time had passed since the alleged offences for a trial to proceed – a ruling that left his victims devastated.
Gibney left Ireland first for Scotland before crossing the Atlantic.
He secured a US visa and took low-level clerical positions while moving between Colorado, California and Florida.
Reporters did not let the situation go, with a turning point coming in 2020 when the BBC commissioned a ten-part podcast series titled “Where is George Gibney?”
The series prompted fresh scrutiny of the case, with four survivors who had been children when Gibney abused them coming forward to give formal statements to Irish police.
Gibney was arrested in the United States and brought back to Ireland last year to stand trial.
The closely watched proceedings culminated in his conviction in July on all 40 counts, finally delivering the criminal accountability that had eluded his victims for more than three decades since the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision.
Evin Daly, the child welfare advocate who helped track Gibney in Florida, called the sentencing “vindication for those children”.
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