Co Westmeath’s Wilson’s Hospital School has made an appeal to the High Court, seeking orders that might result in teacher Enoch Burke being sentenced to prison for contempt of court for a third time. On Wednesday’s court recess, the school board, represented by Rosemary Mallon Bl, was approved to initiate a motion. This motion aims at the potential arrest and possible imprisonment of Mr Burke, a teacher from Co Mayo, due to an alleged violation of a permanent injunction forbidding him to access the school’s premises.
The school has recently sought the court’s intervention following Mr Burke’s presence in the school grounds, despite an appeal against his dismissal from the institution. The situation has generated high levels of anxiety among the school board since last Thursday, August 22, due to Mr Burke’s disregard for the injunction preventing him from accessing the school’s premises.
There is heightened concern following an alleged occurrence where Mr Burke supposedly trespassed into a classroom in the primary school building wherein teachers were conducting a meeting regarding the year transition class. According to the school’s lawyers, the presence of Mr Burke on the school’s campus is ‘challenging to supervise’. There is also worry about other unrelated parties beginning to gather outside the school linked to Mr Burke’s ongoing situation.
Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell presided over the case and was granted permission by the school to provide Mr Burke with a short notice regarding his potential arrest and imprisonment proceedings. The case is due back in court on Friday.
Mr Burke, who is a teacher of History and German, had earlier spent over 400 days in Mountjoy Prison in two separate terms. He was released at the end of June without clearing his contempt.
Mr Burke, an Evangelical Christian teacher, has been continuously embroiled in a legal battle with Wilson’s Hospital School, following his denial in 2022 to abide by the school’s decree that he refer to a student by a changed name and use neutral pronouns. Mr Burke has maintained that his incarceration stems from his religious views and his rejection of transgender ideology.
He vociferously denies all allegations of misconduct levelled against him, arguing that his constitutional rights have been violated due to the school’s insistence on him recognising a student according to a different gender. Mr Burke found himself behind bars again in September 2023 for not adhering to a perpetual injunction issued the preceding May by Mr Justice Alex Owens.
Instead of challenging this injunction in the Court of Appeal, Mr Burke sought an earlier High Court directive to annul the injunction, stating it to be defective and in breach of the constitution. However, the High Court dismissed his proposal. In his initial time in jail, Mr Burke served over a hundred days at Mountjoy prison from September to December 2022.
After his suspension from his role as a teacher in August 2022, Mr Burke faced a lawsuit from the school due to his non-compliance with an earlier court directive which mandated him to keep away from the school premises during his suspension. Despite this, he was let out in December 2022 without absolution of his contempt.
Post-Christmas, he resumed his presence at the school, leading to a daily penalty of €700 upon him by the High Court. Nevertheless, Mr Burke was imprisoned once again for contempt, as he failed to maintain a distance from the school at the start of the academic year 2023-24, thereby disregarding an order by Mr Justice Owens. Mr Justice Mark Sanfey cautioned him that the courts wouldn’t think twice before imprisoning him again, should he be found in violation of the court order.