Journalism helped bring George Gibney to court - then his lawyers used it for their case

what the jury didn't hear

When Gibney was finally charged, the journalism that had helped expose him was a key part of the court case.

GEORGE GIBNEY’S PROSECUTION would likely not have been possible without the dogged journalism that kept his offending and absconding from justice in the public eye. 

The work of the Sunday Tribune in the 1990s gave a voice to those he abused before he fled the country, and made those around him in Scotland and subsequently the United States aware of what he had been accused of in Ireland. 

In 2020, the work of the BBC and Second Captain’s podcast ‘Where Is George Gibney?’ put the former swimming coach back into the spotlight when he had been out of the country for 25 years, outlining the scale of historic sexual abuse allegations against him and tracking him down in Florida.

However, this dedicated journalism in turn was used in court when Gibney was finally charged with sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s and brought before the Irish courts. 

Three weeks before his trial began at the Central Criminal Court, a pre-trial hearing was told that his defence counsel were seeking records of communications between the complainants and the creators of the BBC-Second Captains podcast’Where Is George Gibney?’ podcast. 

The court heard that they had requested any communications between the four complainants and the podcast producers, as well as their communications with anybody at any time related to Gibney. 

James Dwyer SC, for the prosecution, handed Mr Justice Tony Hunt a letter regarding the first request and said that having spoken to each of the complainants and the creators of the podcast, only one had had any communication with the creators. 

He said that the second request was “extraordinarily broad”, seeking any emails or messages of any kind, including audio, from any complainants in relation to any instance of alleged misconduct by Gibney.

“This is an application to broaden the request out to beyond the boundaries to which I’ve never seen in relation to a case like this,” Dwyer said, noting that the request had been made 11 months after the man was charged and “many years” after the podcast was broadcast.

He added that there was no realistic way of meeting the request “without utterly interfering with privacy laws of each of the complainants” and asked the court to dismiss it.

Karl Monahan BL, for the defence, told the court that the complaints were made to gardaí around the time the podcast was broadcast, and that two of the complainants had mentioned the podcast directly in their respective complaints.

He said there were recordings made of one of the complainants that could be heard in the podcast and that the final episode notes that she and another person “who claims they had dealings with Mr Gibney” were now communicating with each other.

Interjecting, Mr Justice Hunt said courts had dealt with this in a different context, giving an example that if two complainants were part of the same family, the chances are “there would have been such discussions or conversations”.

“These are not conversations over the dinner table with family members,” Monahan responded, adding that they seem to have been formalised in the form of emails.

He argued that it was relevant to see what the complainants were saying and that should they be called as witnesses to show consistency, it “may well be” that the communications could show inconsistencies.

“We say it is necessary, in order that Mr Gibney have a fair trial, that we have access to these materials, be they emails, texts or WhatsApps,” he told the court.

Having considered the matter, Mr Justice Hunt said that disclosure was a process where the prosecution were obliged to consider material that they had within the context of case law and disclose anything that may advance a defence.

“What disclosure isn’t a process concerning, is anything to do with the speculative notion that somebody at sometime in someplace in some indeterminate way may have engaged in conversation and or retained documents” in relation to a matter, he said.

He said that while he understood an accused can have concerns and that it would be astute to seek disclosure, it has to take place within established procedures and not be triggered by “a general and somewhat speculative request”.

“What has happened here – and I’m reassured by the clarification which I sought – is that prosecution have considered each complainant and canvassed with them whether or not they engaged in conversations which are understandably a matter of concern for the defendant,” he said.

“Therefore on the basis as revealed in correspondence, I’m not disposed to make any further disclosure order on this matter at this time.”

Mark Horgan, who presented and produced the podcast, told The Journal that he was specifically contacted by gardaí seeking all correspondence. 

“It was a real concern because everything that we’d done in the podcast was to put the survivors of Gibney first and to put people that had come forward first, and that includes entirely looking after their privacy,” he said.

“The idea that that would be taken away was quite a startling thing.”

Horgan said they sought legal advice and the BBC “were able to guide us in the right way to reject the idea of handing anything over, and thankfully, that’s what we were able to do before the judge rejected it.”

Empanelling a jury

Gibney’s past was also an issue when it came to empanelling a jury for the trial.

In criminal trials, jurors must base their verdict solely on the evidence presented to them in court.

At the outset of a trial, they are warned not to discuss the case with anyone outside the courtroom, and not to do their own research or look for any information about the parties involved in the case, which could prejudice their opinion.

Seeking outside information can result in a mistrial and constitutes contempt of court, which is punishable by fines or imprisonment. 

On the first day of the trial, defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC asked Mr Justice Paul McDermott to inform the 200-strong jury panel that if they had heard of or knew of George Gibney or if they had any connection to the swimming community in south county Dublin in the 1970s, they should excuse themselves.

He said he was raising the matter in particular because of a certain podcast “which appears to have been very widely circulated a number of years ago concerning Mr Gibney”.

This was a reference to the ‘Where Is George Gibney?’ podcast. 

Counsels for both sides agreed that the podcast should not be mentioned to the jury.

But prosecuting counsel James Dwyer SC felt that the suggestion that a person should not serve on the jury if they had heard of Gibney was “a little too broad”, considering he was a figure of “significant public providence” in the 1980s, and would “eliminate large swathes of the jury panel”.

Mr Justice McDermott suggested he say that Gibney was the subject of media attention in the 1980s and 1990s, and in the 2020s due to the podcast, and that if a potential juror had heard something that they felt would render them unable to serve, they should not.

“Except this case wasn’t the subject of media attention,” Gageby said.

“But he was,” the judge replied, adding that he knew very little about Gibney “apart from what I’ve heard in the media over the years and in relation to swimming”.

In the end, he told the jury panel that they “shouldn’t involve yourself in a case if you have a connection with it or you feel you can’t give a fair judgement on it”.

He said there may have been “publicity in relation to Mr Gibney” in the media “and it’s important that in respect of any such publicly published material, any social media material, anything that appears anywhere on the internet, is not to be pursued, not to be looked at”.

He said they must “only serve in relation to this matter as jurors who only consider the evidence put before you in the courtroom where the trial is held”.

“Nothing else is of relevance to you, so do not go down that road. It’s extremely important that you do not do so.”

He added: “If you are aware of any such material and have viewed such material over the years, it is important that you should not serve. If you have any connection with swimming clubs, you simply should not serve.”