George Gibney sentenced after convictions involving four girls

George Gibney was sentenced at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court on October 12 after being convicted of sexually assaulting four girls and attempting to assault one of them. Reports differed on the total term imposed: some said 15 and a half years, while others reported 16 years and eight months, with the final 14 months suspended. The supplied accounts do not resolve the difference. The convictions followed a jury verdict in July. The jury found Gibney guilty on 40 charges: 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted assault. The assaults involved four girls and took place in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the reports. Gibney had denied dozens of charges and pleaded guilty to five indecent-assault charges concerning one girl in 1976. Judge Micheál O’Higgins described Gibney as a manipulative predator during sentencing, according to accounts of the hearing. One report said the judge characterized the offenses as part of a pattern of systemic offending that violated the rights of four children over a lengthy period. Gibney, now 78, was a prominent swimming coach who had lived in the United States for years before his return to Ireland to face the case.