Ingrid Ingebriggen, Jakob ‘sister, tells the court that their father Gjert slapped her, whisking her with a towel

Ingrid Ingebriggen, sister of the Olympic gold medal Jakob, told a court on Thursday that the father presumably slapped him and whipped her with a towel.

Before Ingrid, 19 years old, he testified in court in his hometown of Sandnes, Norway, his legal consultant, puts Yvonne Larsen, made an appeal: “He is very nervous. He had a breakdown yesterday and is very afraid. First of all, he feared to see Gjert”.

Ingrid was testifying against his father, Gjert Ingebriggen, on charges of abuse in close relationships against her and his older brother Jakob.

The accusation requested a closed court for the testimony of Ingrid. This was also requested by the defense for Gjert, however this statement was rejected.

Gjert denies all the accusations and representation of the events and has not declared himself guilty. Never denies having been violent.

The accusations involve a maximum sentence of six years, while a restrictive order could also be issued and a separate punishment by the Norwegian athletic federation can be proposed if it is declared guilty.

Gjert has trained the trio of the older brothers of Ingrid who are medium -distance professional runners: Henrik, Filip and Jakob, who won all the European titles of 1,500 million and Jakob won the Olympic gold for that distance to the delayed Tokyo matches. They separated with Gjert as a coach at the beginning of 2022 after he had been presented who had hit Ingrid with a towel.

The prosecutor Ellen Gimre led the interrogation of Ingrid, the second younger and the only girl of seven brothers.

Gimre asked her to explain the background of January 5, 2022, the day Gjert would have hit Ingrid with a towel.

Ingrid told the court that he had planned to meet friends and “found frightening even ask for permission”. After going below to tell Gjert who was leaving: “I was simply told that it was not an option. I asked why, but there was no reason.

“At that point, I felt trapped in my house for so long, and so had passed so long, so I didn’t accept the refusal. I pushed a little and I said:” Why is it not allowed? “

“Then he pushed my finger in my face, screaming. This had happened before, but since I had spent so many months to be pushed down and ignored, I felt completely victim of bullying. I left my finger. I still don’t understand how I dared to do it.

“He had a small and wet towel in his hand. He whipped the towel towards me. The first time he lost, then he did it again, aiming on my face, and hit my cheek.”

Ingrid said he blocked, before Gjert “quickly realized that he had done something wrong. He seemed very stressed,” starting to take a step up and down the corridor. It was then that he ran at the home of his older brother Henrik and his wife Liva, who lived nearby.

“I ran there, sobbing, and I told Liva shocked what had happened. Then (Gjert) called me, telling me to go home immediately, and if I did not do it, he would come to take me. Liva closed the door, made me a photo and called Henrik, who was away in a training field with Filip and Jakob”.

Gjert, said Ingrid, came home and tried to open the door. Henrik had called his older brother, Kristoffer, who lives a road, and arrived with a baseball bat to face his father.

Liva also called Tone, the mother of the seven Inside brothers. “He came immediately (from work),” Ingrid recalled. “He said:” It’s enough. Gjert is sick and needs help. “Mom went to Gjert, saying that he had to take care of him, that he was afraid of what he could do.”

Ingrid said that Gjert sent her a message the following day, “but she was only apologized for having raised her voice, not for what really happened”.

Since then, Ingrid remained with Kristoffer and moved voluntary in March 2022, with his old middle school teacher. He wanted to report Gjert to the police immediately, “but none of my other brothers wanted,” he explained.

“They closed it quite quickly at the beginning. They found difficult.” This is why 20 months have passed since the alleged abuse and the declaration of October 2023 of Jakob, Henrik and Filip – Published in the Norwegian newspaper VG – where they publicly spoke for the first time of the control nature of Gjert and the alleged abuse.

Ingrid said that the custody was “very difficult and not a situation in which I wanted to be voluntarily. I did everything possible to avoid ending up at home”.

He felt “in a battle against childhood assistance services. I don’t feel as if I had been treated well or believed by them”. They said they couldn’t help but accusations against Gjert as they perceived insufficient evidence. Gjert and Tone kept their passport and “they used it against me, deliberately so as not to be able to travel with my adoptive family,” he said.

While he lived temporarily with Kristoffer, his wife Christina suggested that Ingrid writes Gjert’s key points that would abuse her. Ingrid described Kristoffer as “a little angry and upset by the fact that he had not known what was going on”, with her filling an A4 page.

More than once it was pushed into an ice shower and kept under the water to “wake it up”.

Gjert’s “Crazy Eyes” is another thing that Ingrid wrote. “It was then that he really got angry and exploded – it seemed that everything was black for him,” he said. Ingrid used “crazy eyes” to describe an accident, when he lived at home, where he was sick and did not train but he was still made to get up early to have breakfast with his brothers.

“I asked if I could sleep longer. The answer was that it was not an option. I kept asking me because I didn’t understand why.” He slammed the sliding door on the bedroom of his parents stronger than he expected and says that Gjert took revenge. “He put both hands on my chest and pushed me down,” said Ingrid to Court.

A sketch in the classroom of Gjert Ingebriggen (Ane Hem/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

It has escaped in fear. “My heart sinked immediately and quickly corrected up the stairs in my room. I only did it halfway when it opened the sliding door and I said calmly:” Now come here. “

“I realized I had done something wrong. So I went further, and then I stayed again with my finger in my face and shouted me.

“I remember trying to say:” But it wasn’t on purpose “and I think he took him while I speak. Then I was pushed strong to the ground.” While he ran away, crying, recalls: “The mother asks while it was happening,” “Gjert, what are you doing?” “

The first application for alleged abuse against Ingrid was since 2019, when Gjert was led to Stavanger (16 km/10 miles north of the hometown of Ingebriggen di Sandnes) for a race. He had forgotten his heart rate monitor. Gjert, says Ingrid, called her “useless” and “stupid”, and after replying with “shut up”, slapped her in the face.

Gimre finished his questions by asking Engrid what was the worst part of his childhood. “I wouldn’t say it is violence. It’s bad, but I don’t think it can be compared to mental toll for many years.

“The fear with which you live in your house. The worst ever of everyone is like my mother has chosen to be in this situation.” The tone is one of the over 30 witnesses who will be called to testify in the next five weeks. “If you don’t choose to tell the truth, or to support me and believe me, I will not have people like this in my life,” said Ingrid.

He left athletics of 15 years, in the autumn of 2021, who was immediately after Jakob had won the gold of 1,500 Olympic meters.

Jakob Ingebriggen is located on top of the podium in Tokyo (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

“Until I moved (at the beginning of 2022), it was a really difficult period for me. During that period, he (Gjert) would have completely ignored me,” he testified. “He said he no longer saw me as his daughter, that I was not worthy of it. He said I was ruining the family.”

Ingrid said that by stopping “it was something I had to keep secret. I shouldn’t have told anyone because it would be destructive. He (Gjert) said it was embarrassing, that I had stopped in front of all Norway in the TV series and lied, saying that I wanted to be great.”

She, like the older brother Kristoffer, experiences night terror. “I dreamed that Gjert was running me, trying to take me and that the stands were full of people who only looked at,” he said, and melatonin was prescribed.

Since Gjert presumably hit her at the beginning of 2022, Ingrid had three anxiety attacks, over 50 hours of therapy and “has also developed serious migraines, with which I still fight. My doctor and I concluded that it is caused by stress”.

With his complete testimony, the case is updated until Monday, where Gjert will provide his tests for three days.

The process continues.

(Superior Photo of Jakob Ingebriggen: Lise Azerud/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)