Tom Humphries Case Prompts Irish Discussion of Similarities to George Gibney Story

by Irvin Muchnick

Yesterday we noted the criminal sentencing in Ireland of Tom Humphries, once a leading sportswriter there, for sexual abuse of a young woman starting when she was 14.

Discussion of the Humphries case on Liveline, a program on the Irish public radio network RTÉ, led to mentions of George Gibney, the similarly disgraced former Irish Olympic swim coach. Gibney has been controversially harbored in the United States for nearly a quarter of a century. Concussion Inc.’s Freedom of Information Act case for more material from Gibney’s American immigration files is now in settlement talks at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The RTÉ references are courtesy of our friends at the Irish news site Broadsheet.

Yesterday, as chronicled at http://www.broadsheet.ie/2017/10/24/two-and-a-half-years/, Liveline spoke about Humphries with Aidan O’Toole, father of Dr. Gary O’Toole, the Olympic swimmer who organized Gibney’s victims into exposing him. Aidan O’Toole said:“I saw this happening in swimming and how Gibney got away and evaded justice. He not only had powerful connections in swimming. He had it coming from Government down. And he evaded justice in the end by manipulating the whole way of getting off on these things.”

Today was the turn for Karen Leach, a victim of Gibney’s fellow swim coach and sex criminal Derry O’Rourke. She discussed the toll of O’Rourke’s sexual abuse, which started when she was 10, and how it has been tantamount to “37 years of prison.” Leach added, “George Gibney did the same to his swimmers in Trojan [swimming club]. He, someone helped him, he’s living free in America. He never faced anything.” See the full account of this interview at http://www.broadsheet.ie/2017/10/25/someone-helped-him-hes-living-free-in-america/.

Complete headline links to our nearly three years of Gibney coverage, which began in 2015, are at https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942.