Doyle court appeal
FORMER SWIM COACH APPEALS CONVICTION
DISGRACED former swimming coach Ger Doyle has appealed his conviction for abusing five young boys over a 13-year period.
Doyle, of 7 Emmett Place, Wexford, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court earlier this year.
He had protested his innocence last November when a jury of six men and six women found him guilty of 35 offences involving five boys aged 10 to 15 years old at New Ross Swimming Pool between January 1981 and December 1993.
The Courts Service confirmed this week that Ger Doyle has appealed the conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Last November the jury at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court returned a unanimous verdict on the sexual assault charge and 32 indecent assault charges, with majority verdicts on the two remaining indecent assault charges. 'I am not guilty of these charges,' Doyle said, after the verdict was read out.
When he came before Judge Doyle on January 28 for sentencing, defence counsel John O'Kelly said his client, a former Olympic and national swimming coach had suffered 'a terrible fall from grace'.
Mr O'Kelly said Doyle was also 'finding it very difficult in prison', where he has been since his conviction last November.
'He's a man who has never smoked and is now living in a smoke-filled environment despite the best efforts of the prison authorities. While he had made a good recovery from two very severe life-threatening conditions he's finding prison life considerably difficult,' said Mr O'Kelly.
Judge Doyle said the offences had been carried out over a period of more than ten years and that Doyle had breached the trust of children under his care and that of their parents.
