By Sean O’Driscoll

One of Ireland’s most notorious pedophiles is back living in Denver after he fled from his job in a Colorado airline company this week. 

Neighbors of George Gibney, a former coach of the Irish national swimming team, are unaware that he spawned the biggest scandal in Irish sports and led to the collapse of the Irish national swimming organization. Police in the area are also unaware of Gibney’s past. 

Gibney caused a national scandal in Ireland in 1992 when he obtained a High Court order stopping his trial on 17 sexual abuse charges. Gibney argued in court that the time limit had expired on the case because most of the abuse took place between the 1960s and 1991. 

However, some of the biggest names in Irish swimming protested the collapse of the trial. Other victims came forward, but Gibney had fled the country and told his lawyer that he would not return. 

The stories of the abused were heard in court but they never found justice. A brother and sister told how Gibney had abused them in the back of the family car while their father was driving in the front. 

Another teenager testified about an international swimming meet, when Gibney locked her in a room with him and she was abused. 

An Irish government commissioned report, released in 1988, found that Gibney had abused children for three decades, including one 13-year-old girl he slapped in the face after she told him to stop the abuse. He continued to abuse her and her friends. 

Gibney, who coached the disgraced Olympic gold medalist Michelle Smith and some of the biggest names in Irish swimming, was sacked as national swimming coach in 1992. There was a huge public outcry after his replacement, Derry O’Rourke, was jailed for similar offenses, and the scandal led to a complete overall of Irish sports coaching.

An independent public inquiry led to the development of a new code of ethics for all Irish sports.

Gibney fled to Scotland, where he continued to coach children. 

He later fled to the U.S., where he coached in Salt Lake City in Utah. He eventually disappeared and his whereabouts weren’t known for years until he was outed by an Irish newspaper this week. 

Reporter Michael O’Toole, writing for the Irish Star, discovered that Gibney was working for Frontier Airlines in Denver after a five year hunt. However, Gibney fled from the job before the newspaper could catch up with him. 

The Irish Voice has since learned that Gibney has returned to his house on the block of 52nd Avenue in Denver. 

Gibney purchased his house last year for more than $250,000. It is located on the open, spacious end of 52nd Avenue, away from the industrial, high employment areas of east Denver.

Joe Cahill, a Denver police officer and a leading member of the Denver Irish National Unity Conference, said that Gibney had not surfaced in the city’s Irish community, and said that he had not seen any reference to him in the Denver media. 

Cahill said that he would contact the sexual offenses section of the Denver police to inform them of Gibney’s past. 

The Irish American Unity Conference had been heavily involved in fighting the deportation of the formerly Colorado based Irish Republican, Ciaran Ferry, who was sent back to Belfast in late December. 

The Cahill is puzzled why Ferry, not wanted for any crime in Ireland, was forced to return home while someone of Gibney’s reputation is allowed to live openly in the community. 

Brian, the manager of Coyote Motorcycles on East 57th Avenue, said that that nobody in the community had heard of Gibney but said that he would look out for him. 

“East Denver is not a good place for someone like that. People are not going to be one bit happy he’s here. It’s time for him to go,” he said.