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Irish Times
4 days ago
- Irish Times
Why has it taken so long to arrest George Gibney in the US to enable extradition?
More than 30 years have passed since former Irish national swim team coach George Gibney won a legal challenge in Dublin's High Court, ensuring he escaped prosecution for the alleged sexual abuse of young swimmers he coached. Mr Gibney was arrested in Florida on Tuesday by US Marshals on foot of an extradition request from the authorities in the Republic. So what changed to revive law enforcement's interest in Mr Gibney? The short answer is the BBC's Where is George Gibney? podcast. Changes in the Irish criminal justice system have also now made a prosecution possible. The podcast series was driven by journalist Mark Horgan, co-director of the Second Captains production company, which specialises in sports-based radio broadcasts and podcasts. The series was broadcast between 2020 and 2022. It was an extensive trawl into Mr Gibney's background, including his alleged sexual abuse of young swimmers. It culminated in tracing him to Florida and approaching him on the street for comment. Though Mr Gibney refused to engage, many of his alleged victims were listening to the series. Four came forward and made statements to gardaí alleging Mr Gibney had sexually abused them between 1971 and 1981. By 2021, with the statements gathered, detectives at the Sexual Crime Management Unit were deep into a criminal investigation. Once completed, a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). It directed in May 2023 that Mr Gibney should face trial on 79 criminal charges; one charge of attempted rape and 78 of indecent assault. The following month – June 2023 – Dublin District Court issued 79 warrants for his arrest, all done in secret. The Irish authorities, through the Irish Embassy in Washington, last October formally requested Mr Gibney's extradition. On foot of that request, he was arrested in Florida on Tuesday, appearing in court later in the day and was remanded in custody, where he remains pending extradition. The Irish Times has secured the latest documents relating to the case from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. The four victims allege they were abused – often weekly – between the ages of about eight and 14. The alleged offences occurred at Mr Gibney's home, his car, the girls' homes, and in changing rooms or an office at sports centres where the girls swam; often five mornings, from 5am, and two afternoons, per week. The BBC podcast and the impact it had in prompting the four victims to come forward are mentioned several times in the court documents from Florida. They were not the first group of alleged victims to come forward, however. Mr Gibney had appeared before Dún Laoghaire District Court in April 1993 to face 27 counts of indecency and carnal knowledge of children. The following year, however, he successfully won a High Court judicial review, which prohibited the DPP from pressing ahead with its case against him. Under accepted legal norms in 1994, the court effectively ruled the allegations were too old, and many details too vague, to warrant a safe prosecution. Since the 1990s, the courts in the Republic have more frequently convicted criminals, mainly child abusers, for crimes committed decades earlier. Victim testimony in court is now regularly the only significant evidence required to secure convictions. In many cases, convictions have been secured even when the passage of time has meant the victims' recall is incomplete around the locations, dates and other details of the abuse to which they say they were subjected. Due to the 1994 High Court ruling relating to the 27 charges at that time, however, the State was effectively precluded from ever taking up those complaints and seeking to run a new prosecution. That meant if Mr Gibney was ever to be investigated again by the Garda, undiscovered victims had to come forward. They had to make a new set of allegations to ground a fresh investigation that did not overlap with the previous inquiry. That did not happen until the Where is George Gibney? podcast began airing five years ago. A renewed effort to prosecute, even based on complaints from new victims, likely would have failed in the 1990s because of the ruling in 1994. It took many years for legal norms to change around how historical sexual abuse cases could be prosecuted. The failed prosecution process against Mr Gibney in the 1990s meant he was free to leave the Republic. He tried to relaunch his coaching career in Scotland, but was forced to leave there when news of the allegations against him emerged. Mr Gibney has lived in the US since 1995.
Irish Times
26-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Ciarán Murphy: Nostradamus would have been proud of my tip. I should have shouted it from the rooftops
I was sitting in my house a couple of Saturdays ago, idly thinking about the upcoming weekend of Gaelic football games. I was thinking, to be specific, about Kerry versus Meath , taking place in Tullamore later that day. I was trying to convince myself of something. I knocked it around in my head. Hmmm … yes. Meath like two-pointers. They can rack up scores. Kerry have a few injuries. If they are complacent, they're vulnerable. I texted my friend Mark Horgan and told him that if he had a fiver left over in a bookies app from the last time he placed a bet (almost certainly the Grand National), he should put it on his beloved Royals. As Meath eased to a thumping victory , I could sense that after 22 years, the dynamic in our friendship had decisively changed. He finally respected me. And this wasn't just about the €65 he won (there was a tenner left, and he'd put all his chips on the table). I was now the Seer of Seers, the Prognosticator of Prognosticators. That respect may have dwindled somewhat when he asked me what came over me to arrive at this startling, Nostradamus-like conclusion. 'I was just sitting in my favourite chair, looking out the window, and . . . thinking about football' doesn't paint me and my life in an exceptionally interesting light, but I'd like to think it hasn't disappeared entirely. READ MORE As the updates came through, I was kicking myself that I hadn't published this hunch more widely. I work on a podcast, I write a column for a national newspaper – why couldn't I have broadcast these almost mystical match-predicting abilities more widely? You may feel obliged to point out that I have corrected the record today, at least. Meath football manager Robbie Brennan celebrates his team's famous victory against Kerry earlier this month. Photograph: Tom O'Hanlon/Inpho Predictions are the stock-in-trade of the chattering classes and I had wasted my one good shout of the year on a Saturday morning text message. But this is a very narrow worldview. Because I've found myself making predictions everywhere this week. My family, the TV repairman, the man making my coffee . . . we've all exchanged our tuppence ha'penny worth about the four upcoming All-Ireland quarter-finals. There have been years when this was not possible. There have been years when the TV repairman would have had no interest in talking to you about Gaelic football, and he would have been well within his rights. Your local barista would have had other things occupying their mind. But this is a new dawn. There are many things we do not know or understand about Gaelic football, but there's one sure way to advertise your knowledge and that's by confidently predicting winners. So when asked, I like to picture myself sitting at the bar in Mullarkeys in Milltown, Co Galway , beside my father. I imagine myself being quizzed by his friends, who are looking at me with a gimlet eye. 'He earns a living at this craic, but does he actually have any clue what he's on about? It's one thing expounding at length in the coffee shops of Dublin 2, but in this crucible, who are you actually going to tip?' The morally, intellectually honest answer to such a question this week is: 'I really couldn't say with any certainty.' But, of course, that will not cut it. I dare not even mutter the phrase 'shot efficiency' within two miles of Mullarkeys. I've noticed in the past that it's better to lead with something like a team's lack of a left-footed free-taker; something that is noticeable to the naked eye, but which shows keen observation, rather than a slavish, possibly deviant, obsession with statistics. Tyrone's Darragh Canavan makes a pass under pressure from Cian Reilly of Cavan. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho 'Well lads, here's how I see it' – I might pause here and take a sup of my pint, for dramatic effect – 'Galway will beat Meath on Sunday.' This would appease the locals, notwithstanding their serious misgivings about Galway, which they would probably have been airing for the previous hour and a half. 'Donegal will have their arses out to beat Monaghan on Saturday.' That sounds like a bold statement, but it's still a shout for the favourites. 'I think Tyrone will beat the Dubs, Con or no Con. They have big men around the middle on Cluxton's kick-out, and they've forwards. Darragh Canavan, lads – Sunday will be the day we'll see Darragh Canavan.' Someone will lean in and inform the pub that Dublin v Tyrone is actually on Saturday, not Sunday, but I'm in my stride now. 'And Kerry will beat Armagh after extra-time.' This is the point where I would really open my shoulders, rhetorically speaking. I'd mention Barry McCambridge's calf, Paddy Burns's struggles with Shane Walsh in the group game, David Clifford's irrepressible form. [ Darragh Ó Sé: Donegal are right - there's no way they should have to play on a six-day turnaround Opens in new window ] I would construct an entire argument – but it's not a conclusion, in the same way that tipping Tyrone over Dublin isn't a conclusion. What I am actually doing is retrofitting some opinions to the hunch I have, after the fact. 'I just have a feeling …' isn't good enough for Mullarkeys, or The Irish Times, or The Sunday Game. But maybe that's all we have. I can see myself slapping my pint down and saying I'd better be on my way. After that, silence would descend on the bar for 10 seconds. Then 20. Someone will say, as if to no one: 'That lad now . . . that lad is the latest in a long line of bullshitters.' And they would, as ever, be entirely correct.
