6. Sunshine State

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That looks like a silver Honda. Looks a little bit newer, but I'm going to give it a go, OK? We continue to follow George Gibney around Florida. I don't think we will. OK, we just need the lights. We've changed cars. CRVs like the one he drives pop up everywhere. I think, are we hallucinating seeing CRVs now? No, I think it's just really popular car. It's hot. Some days we just sit there. Baking in the Florida sun.

We're not sure if he knows about us yet. If his neighbours told him about the strange car they spotted earlier in the week. They could get out this way, could they? On to the main road. We've no idea what George Gibney thinks about his life now. How he feels about how he ended up in Orlando. What I can say about Florida, though,

is that it's the perfect place for a man like George Gibney to disappear. Because he just blends in. It's where so many men his age, men who look just like him, come to retire. Well, that's all. Miami pop star Pitbull releasing a new video to promote Florida. The rapper signed a contract last year.

with the state's tourism marketing agency, known as Visit Florida, for an undisclosed amount to act as a tourism ambassador for Florida. But should you know how many of your tax dollars are going to Pitbull? Cast, cast. We got it? Go first? I think so. That's it. Is it? As in the type of car. If Gibney does ever think about what happened...

His downfall began with that conversation on the plane between Chalky and Gary. It all began with Chalky. I go, well, did he ever do anything to you that, you know... Did he ever go any further than just normal coach-swimmer relationship? And I said, no, no. And then I think he said, no, you're not understanding me. Has he ever sexually abused you? I said, no, why are you asking me that question? And he says, because he did it to me.

When he said he did it to me, it was like the clouds parted and then everything. It was like the cornerstone in the piece of a jigsaw. everything started to make sense to me. Everything. Since that conversation on the plane, Chalky's marriage broke up. He came out, and he decided to leave Ireland. Hey, Chucky. No, I'm right here. I'm at the corner. I'm at the... I'm just pulled in around the corner there at the crossroads.

Great. See you in a sec. Bye. After spending time living in places like Japan and India and Thailand and South Africa, Chalky now lives in Florida.

This weather ain't bad. Welcome to Florida. Thank you very much. Strange coincidence. Chucky and George Gibney living in the same state. Chucky, talk me through this place as we're walking around. OK, we're in Pompano Beach. We're in a place called Extended Stay America. This is where I actually stay. Chalky works as a business implementation consultant.

He's currently living in a long-stay hotel just off a freeway outside Miami. And that's where I meet him. Look at it. Look at the colours. Wait till you see my room. It's dark. They're kind of... Light brown walls, which can give you a feeling that this is what you're in, you know. Actually, let's go for this. I've never really done this. Makes sense. Actually, I thought you'd do it.

Although they're in the same state, for Chalky, there's no point wasting energy thinking about George Gibney. It's just not worth it. I'm in Florida. I know he's not very far from where I am in Florida. There was a time, you know, years ago where I thought, hmm, I could go to the States. I could.

kill him, kneecap him, do this, do that, and get back and nobody would ever know it was me. Then I'm in Florida and I'm looking and saying, I wonder where he is. How about if I go and try and find him? And yeah, and it's like, for what? If I ever come up against him in the future, I just want him to look and say, I wish I was you, Chalky, because my life has been hell.

As a result of what I did to you now, this is the comeuppance that you're actually getting. Look, I wish my life was anything like yours because of what I have actually gone through. We go to Chalky's room to talk. Where are you from?

Ireland. This is my room. My television runs 24 hours. I never switch it off. Because in the middle of the night, it's kind of like a company. I'm not on my own. At least the TV is there. I don't get distracted by it or anything at all. It's just on, and I just feel like there is somebody there. And as we sit and talk, Chalky tells me why he's been on the road so long, why he doesn't live in Dublin. Um... Not an easy one to say.

But I'm not sure that I can... If I put it down, OK, the easiest way to say it is, yeah, I'm constantly on the run. I'm not sure that I can ever feel comfortable about it. really settling down anywhere else. It's just for whatever reason. If I'm back, I see somebody, somebody with the hairstyle that looks exactly like his, a person with a beard, a person with glasses. See somebody from swimming. I see a place. I see a car. I see a face. I see a bird. I see glasses. There are many things.

There are reminders of people in swimming that I just don't have anymore. And it just kind of reminds you. My biggest fear is that... The time will come when I'm not able to go somewhere else and run away from it. And then I kind of worry about when I'm not able to run from it, what's actually going to happen.

Okay, I'll get my keys and then I'll come out to you. Are you sure? You don't need to if you want to spin up. No, no, no, no. I need to go back to work. You're going that way. Okay, I'll go that way. Okay, cool. Okay, I'll see you out front. Yeah, see you at the car. It's time to go. Chalky says he'll come with me. He says it's complicated to find the road I need to go on. I say I have my sat-nav, but he wants to grab some keys upstairs and join me in the car to direct me.

Got where I'm going? No, I'll go out with you just so I can see where you're going because you should be going up that way. Within a minute of getting in the car, I was pulling over onto a patch of dirt road. directly opposite the hotel. I wonder... You can just pull over here. Chalky clearly still had something on his mind. Sometimes, sometimes I wonder, not do I ever, do they ever think, you know?

Sometimes I want this, first of all, does George give me everything bothered to think about me, you know, right? Why do you think it would make a difference to me? Probably doesn't it doesn't, but I often wonder, does he even know and remember what it was and who it was that actually... brought about his standpoint and I don't mean me but myself and Bernadette and you know like all the others does he ever think about those people

Sometimes I kind of just, I think about that, you know? But that's not the way it is, you know? Okay, safe journey. It's lovely to see you again, Charlie. Okay, you too. Okay, yeah, all right, Mark. Thanks, yeah, bye.

Who's running? Who's cycling? Well, we're going to try running. Do you want to? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you're not that slow, are you? I'm in Cardiff, Wales, and I'm about to go running. Yeah, I haven't taken my visor. I know I look like a saddo, but... Yeah, let's go down the trail, isn't it? I hate the sun in my eyes. I know, it's groovy, isn't it? It's groovy.

Why don't you have a visor for me? I know, yeah, it's sinking. But I can't wear sunglasses because they're too wobbly. And I hate a full hat. But this is not the best look. The reason I'm here is because of Florida.

When we were driving around Orlando, following George Gibney, I thought a lot about this family. See you later, Lou. This is Laura. Her sister Susan was a swimmer and Susan's coach was George Gibney. Susan, by the way, isn't her real name. We're running because this is when Laura thinks about her big sister. And she often thinks about her big sister. Every day. At least. Every day, yeah. If I'm out running especially, I think about her all the time.

Yeah, and especially when I'm running, I think about her because obviously she was a swimmer, but she was also a runner. And I think that's when I think about her the most. We now know that George Gibney still lives in Florida. We just heard from Chalky, who now lives there too, but for this family. For Susan. They still think back to something that happened in Florida decades ago. Something that changed their lives forever.

I spoke to my mum about this because obviously her memory is a lot better than what mine was because obviously I was a teenager. But I do remember, my mum said it was literally when she came back from Florida. It was almost like she'd... She became extremely difficult, moody, fighting with her all the time. So, yeah, that was coming. My mum said it was straight after Florida that it really... her behavior started to go downhill.

Why didn't I cop on, you know? She rang me from Florida and she said to me she hated and she wanted to come home. And I said, come on, you've only three days left. And, you know, I said, come on, just...

relax and try and enjoy it. Carol Walsh was Susan's first coach. She didn't go to Florida on that training trip but she was instrumental in spotting Susan's talent. She was a twirler. She was in a twirling band in Donamy and she turned up for a trial in a leotard. And she got in and I remember calling the coach who was on the other side of the pool taking the main session and saying, look at her breaststroke kick. And she said, oh God, that's great. Carol could see her potential.

but to get Susan to the top level, there was only one coach in the country for her to go to. George Gibney was over the other side of the city, but Carroll believed Susan would have the best chance with him. So each morning... Susan would get up at 4am to arrive at the pool for a 5.15 start. And as his daughter trained with Gibney, Susan's dad would sleep outside in the car before his own work shift began. I think actually...

I have a book. And they used her, the guy who, he was the development officer for Irish swimming. He wrote the book on how to set up a club and the shots were amazing, amazing. Like the length of her legs, the length of her arms, you know, the width of her shoulders, perfect for butterfly, you know. Oh my God. As we flick through the book, we see photos of Susan. She just looked brilliant. She looked like a model, you know, when you looked at her.

We see pictures of her arms underwater, her legs kicking. No, it's not. Sorry, let me see the light. It's tricky. Haunting photographs of her before Florida. It was criminal, criminal, absolutely, that she didn't go to the Olympics.

and that she didn't have her chance to shine, you know. By 1991, Susan was right on track for the Olympic Games. She was breaking national record after national record, and her path to Barcelona was set. She had two international training camps. First one was Neunhofen in Holland, and then Florida. After that... She'd have a shot at qualifying for the Olympics at the national championships in Belfast. My first swim competition away from Ireland was Eindhoven. She went out.

and she did a terrible swim. I remember her walking up. He was at the top of the viewing gallery and she walked up and he wouldn't even talk to her. And she came down and she was crying. And I said to her, what's wrong? She said, nothing. She said she slid down the banisters and she hurt herself. She couldn't swim. She couldn't swim properly, you know.

She asked me, could she stay in my room? She'd want to stay in her own. I remember the size of the room, it was colossal. And I said to her, yeah, of course. The way I just saw it was she didn't want to be on her own, so let her sleep in my room and she could have the couch or whatever, we'd organise something. And I went to him and he said, oh, no, you couldn't, not at all, you couldn't do that.

You can't have her in your room and, you know, people looking at you and saying she's shown favouritism and all this. No. So he said, he said, I'll put her mattress in one of the girls' rooms. This is what life, when you're doing everything, family work, you don't really have the headspace to think. This is when you're out running. It's almost like a little mini-therapy session to do, kind of.

Let your emotions out and think about what you think. Sometimes I've even run and I've been running and crying at the same time. I know it's been sad, but it's just... Yeah, but it's just...

I often think of her, you know. The next step to the Olympics was the Florida training camp. My mum said she didn't want to go. She absolutely did not want to go to Florida at all. She'd hidden her passport. and they were trying to find her passport and they literally found it like two days before she was going to Florida turned the house upside down and found it because

Obviously they wanted her to go because they thought it was such an amazing opportunity for her. But on it, I think maybe at the time they didn't realise that she'd actually hidden it. I can't remember the exact conversation, but I do remember. She rang me from Florida and she was very upset. Yeah, she rang. My mum crying. She didn't say, she just said, I think she just said she wanted to come home. And she said she didn't like it and she was crying on the phone.

And I just was talking to her and I thought she just missed home. And I said to her, look, come on, you've only three days left. And I said, come on, just relax and try and enjoy it. But obviously you. You can't come home just like that from Florida. So I think my mum obviously talked around saying, oh, you'll be fine. You know, you'll be home soon. So, yeah.

So, yeah, that was coming. My mum said it was straight after Flora that it really, her behaviour started to go downhill. Almost, she became, you know, very moody, very argumentative. She just thought it was just partly being teenager and stress swimming, but never, ever crossed her mind that it was something that happened.

The Olympic qualifying took place in Belfast. It was just a few weeks after Florida. Her dream was to go to the Olympics. My parents sacrificed so much to get her there, you know, financially, time. you know, dedicated, everything's, you know, geared up to getting her to the Olympics. Belfast, which I went, and that was supposed to be her qualifying one for the Olympics.

I remember obviously being up on the side because we watched, it was quite an unusual pool, quite an old-fashioned pool and I remember us being up quite high in the back. I remember her breaking false starts a couple of times.

I remember she wasn't right. I remember she wasn't right at all. But my mum said, yeah, she just got out of the pool. I think she had, I do remember the false starts. So I think she might have even been disqualified, but done too many false starts and then just got out and start absolutely. sobbing on the bank. She just was uncontrollable. So they took her home, went to speak to her, and...

I think then there was another coach, female coach, was with her and asked her directly, did anything happen in Florida? And she said no. And that was not long after Florida. He took away her chance of going to the Olympics because that was her ultimate, her ultimate aim. I didn't know whether she was going to win anything or not.

I don't know, but her aim was to get there and to compete and represent Ireland and be in the Olympics. And who knows what else she would have done after with her sporting career, who knows? I do remember her just stopping swimming. When she came back from Florida, we did the Belfast. thing and then I don't know exactly the time frame but then she threw herself down the stairs and became injured and that's when she stopped swimming then so she's

My mum suddenly took away her dream of qualifying for the Olympics because that was her dream. So she stopped then, went, left swimming all completely. I don't remember, but my mum obviously remembers it very clearly. She said... Yeah, that was kind of the end of it then. That was the end of her swimming. And then that's when everything went, just spiralled, spiralled, spiralled.

I think she gave up swimming and she disappeared and then she tried to commit suicide and I got a phone call and I went up to see her in the matter. I can't really. I remember going into the hospital and I remember her room. There were no blinds in the room and there were no curtains. And there was no sheets. There were no sheets on the bed. And she had no, there was nothing that she could use to, like, try to commit suicide.

It was when I got the call to go in and see her. And she told me about it then. Susan told Carl what happened to her on that training trip to Tampa, Florida in 1991. The team of young swimmers all stayed with host families for the duration of the trip, and they'd return to these families each morning after training.

But on one particular day, Gibney took Susan and one other young female swimmer for breakfast, away from their other teammates. Gibney then drove the girls to a separate hotel to discuss their swimming. He then brought Susan to a hotel room on her own. and told her to wait inside as he went off with the other girl. He later returned, castigated Susan about her swimming, before raping her in the hotel bed. She was 17. He warned her not to tell anyone.

He said it would be his word against hers and that no one would believe her. It wasn't that time, I think it was the next time that I went in that she had the picture. She had drawn a picture. She was really good. It was her with her head down and a rope around her arms or hands tied to a bed. And my God, that picture stayed with me for a long time. Years ago, Susan tried to get Gibney convicted.

but the case collapsed as Ireland's Director of Public Prosecutions didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute. Now, years later, she's too ill to ever be a witness. I had an awful guilt about that, bringing her over, you know, and she was like a sacrificial lamb to somebody like him because she was... had the potential to be so good. Like he ruined her, you know? He ruined all our dreams and everything of going to the Olympics and everything. Like he just ruined her.

Susan is now a permanent resident in a mental health facility following numerous suicide attempts. Her family aren't sure that she'll ever leave. We're just under six miles. Nice big glass of water. Or squash, whichever. I am a bit, yeah. Come on in. Do you want water or squash? Oh, squash would be lovely. Yeah, orange or black orange, I'll get you. Oh, thanks, yeah. Orange would be great. Yeah.

That's me, and that's my sister Clare, and that's our two neighbours. And we just started the majorettes at the time. So my mum would have made all those costumes. Those outfits. I was about six. So Susan must have been... Gosh, I remember she was five. Eleven. And then my sister, she's a year older than me.

You know, what does Florida mean to you when you hear it? Well, I absolutely, I love Florida, but this time when we were there, we were driving up to go to one of the beaches and we were driving past. you know, where Tampa is and that's where she was. And it's just like, oh, it's just like it's almost, you love it, but then there's obviously the neck, there's such a horrible side to it. And obviously you are on the lookout and you're kind of, he looks a bit, I don't know, maybe.

I don't know, it's hard. The words aren't coming. It's just a strange one, really, because he's still out there enjoying his life in lovely sunny Florida. And that he hasn't. It's just unbelievable that he hasn't. Being caught, yeah, it's just... It just goes to show you what kind of a person he is. That's not a great photograph ever, is it? Well, I don't know. At the fairness, she's got a giant trophy in a pool. It's still quite cool, you know?

a record-breaking swimmer with Trojan Swimming Club. She has her sights firmly set on European swimming championships later this year, followed by the Olympic Games next year. When you take into account that she was... that she has little or no social life, marathon training sessions, and is struggling with the leaving cert as well. Susan seems like an exceptionally disciplined teenager. Her reasons are simple. She loves swimming.

you've been affected by any of the issues in this series, please contact support organisations in your own country. For a list of organisations in the UK that can provide support for survivors of sexual abuse, go to bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. If you were a former swimmer with George Gibney or have any information, however minor, that you feel could help the producers, please contact us confidentially at whereisgeorgegibney

That's whereisgeorgegibney, all one word, at bbc.co.uk. And you can find us on social at Second Captains. Where Is George Gibney is a Second Captains production for BBC Sounds. The series is written and produced by me, Mark Horgan, and Ciarán Cassidy. It's co-produced with Maria Horgan, and editing is also by Ciarán Cassidy. Research and fact-checking is by Cillian Down. Our composer is Michael Fleming. And sound mixing is by Jare MacDonald.

Our theme tune is by Aaron Desner. The executive producer for the BBC is Dylan Haskins and the commissioning editor is Jason Phipps. You can hear episode seven. of Where is George Gibney, which is called Christ Renews, from next Thursday, October the 8th. And you can subscribe now on the free BBC Sounds app. In 2017, a huge news story brought me back to my hometown of Huddersfield. A man has been shot dead by police. I want to know why he was killed.

I'm Rabin Azhar and what I uncovered was gang violence, money laundering and drugs. There's been another incident. Sounds like something out of The Godfather. Hometown. Listen on the BBC Sounds app. This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs.

from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet.

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