After several attempts and failures from his abusers to bring justice to George Gibney, the former Irish national swim coach was convicted earlier this month.
On Monday, July 6, Gibney was convicted of sexually abusing four swimmers and attempting to rape one of them in the 1970s and 1980s. A jury found him guilty of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape.
The 77-year-old was charged with 79 counts relating to sexual abuse last year, but pleaded guilty to five of them at the beginning of the trial in Ireland’s Central Criminal Court.
According to the Irish Times, the abuse took place in Gibney’s car while he was giving female victims rides to and from swim practice, along with in his home when they were babysitting his children, and in the case of two complainants, in their homes.
The victims were between 11 and 13 years old.
Chalkie White, a former Irish swimming champion who was coached and abused by Gibney at a young age, commented on the conviction, which he said he “100 percent thought would never happen.”
White had been a complainant in a case again Gibney in the 1990s that collapsed after a Supreme Court challenge. Following that, Gibney moved abroad, including to coach in the United States in both Colorado and Florida.
Last year, Gibney was extradited to Ireland to face the charges after new evidence surfaced from the BBC podcast titled Where is George Gibney. As a result of the podcast, 18 more victims came forward with new information, leading the Gardai to submit a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2023.
“I am so grateful to those girls who came forward,” White told the Irish Times.
“He’s now a convicted paedophile … People who spoke out and weren’t believed can now be believed. And that is really important.”
White was abused by Gibney when he was 11 and Gibney was starting out as a coach in his late teens.
White told the Irish Times that over the years, every time someone reopened the case against Gibney in an attempt to bring him to justice, it felt like a “here we go again” type of scenario.
“If this had fallen apart, it would have been the depths of despair for a lot of people,” White said, noting that he took comfort over the years from journalists who constantly ensured Gibney was always “looking over his shoulder.”
“But the thought of him being arrested, and convicted, and sentenced, and being sent off to jail – I really didn’t think that would happen,” White said.
“It was like utopia. But maybe we are now realizing a little bit of it [utopia] and I can tell you it is a little bit better than I thought it would be.”
He said it’s been difficult to live with knowing what he knows about what Gibney did, and while that won’t go away, the conviction will help him deal with it.
“You don’t wipe those things out of your mind. But I will be in a better place to manage it,” White said.
Carole Walsh, who coached with Gibney when his victims starting coming forward in the 1990s, said it’s an “incredible achievement” by all of those who came together to help bring him to justice.
“I had listened to all those kids, all the things that had happened to them,” she told the Irish Times. “It was the worst thing I had ever imagined in my whole life. I had nightmares for years afterwards. I don’t think I actually smiled for a long time.
“All those kids that I knew, I felt had entrusted to me their hopes and their aspirations, and knowing that I had fed them to a f**king animal … It was awful.”
Now that he’s convicted, Walsh said she’d love to see the victims come together “and realize they did it.”
“They all did it … the new ones and the old ones. They all did it,” she said.
Gibney will remain in custody before his sentencing on July 29.
