Father and former coach of the Ingebrigtsen athletes says he hates violence and did not deliberately hurt his children

Gjert Ingebrigtsen, who is facing six years in jail for abusive behaviour toward his two of his children, Jakob and Ingrid, has denied all allegations of violence during an ongoing court case in Norway this week.

The 59-year-old says he did not beat Olympic 5000m champion Jakob while he was growing up. Neither, he claims, did he whip his daughter Ingrid with a wet towel.

The latter incident in 2022 led to Jakob and his brothers Henrik and Filip severing ties with him and going public with the details.

Gjert told the court the red mark on Ingrid’s face in a photograph taken after the alleged incident may have been caused by a skin condition such as acne, which he says his family are prone to.

“The situation was heated,” Gjert said. “Ugly things were said in loud voices. There was a reaction from me that was not very good on my part, I can’t say anything more.”

He added: “I still have no recollection of having beaten Jakob or ­anyone else – either in my household or ­others."

Last week, Ingrid, who is now 18, told the court she had been “whipped” in the face with a wet towel after her father had refused to let her play outside.

But Gjert says his towel had only made contact with her finger. “I’m drying my neck with a towel,” Gjert told the court. “She’s really angry and says: ‘I f***ing don’t want to be in this prison of yours any more,’ while holding her index finger at me.

“I pull the towel against her finger twice in quick succession. She then says: ‘What the hell are you doing, are you hitting me?’ To which I reply: ‘I didn’t hit you.’"

Gjert also denied claims that he kicked Jakob after he fell off a scooter when he was eight or nine years old. “It is completely unthinkable that I would have kicked him,” he said. “It is completely out of the question to kick one of my children.”

Gjert did, however, admit that he threw a PlayStation out of a window after a row, adding: “Jakob has been a privileged boy his whole life, he’s been allowed to do and say whatever he wants. He’s almost been carried on a golden chair his whole life. There have been different opinions related to the discussions, without a doubt. But nothing physical.”

Gjert also denied calling Jakob “stupid”, an “idiot”, and “a terrorist” when he was growing up.

The court also heard a recording that Henrik had secretly made of an argument between himself and Gjert. At one point in the recording Gjert told Henrik: “You have fired me as a coach. You have rejected us as ­parents and you are carrying out a perfect character assassination on top of that. What we have worked for, you erase with a stroke of a pen. And then the last bit of my income goes away.”

They also discussed Ingrid having to go to child services. “These people want to hurt me and drag me down to hell,” Gjert told Henrik. “They are going to destroy me as a human being.”