The management of Wilson’s Hospital School wants former teacher Enoch Burke jailed again for breaching court orders banning him from attending at the school, behaviour it claimed was disrupting the beginning of the new school term.
In the High Court on Friday, Ms Justice Nessa Cahill heard that Burke was back at the school and its grounds, posing for selfies with some pupils and setting a bad example of his claimed ability to defy judges and court orders.
Judge Cahill was told that the only time Burke stayed away from the school was when he was in prison and during school holidays. Counsel for the school said he had turned up again at the start of the new term.
Burke was suspended from the Co Westmeath school in 2022 and some months afterwards was dismissed. He kept turning up for work in defiance of court orders, for which he has been jailed several times. He is still being paid his wages pending an appeal against his dismissal.
READ MORE
Previously, following an application by the Attorney General, Mr Justice David Nolan made an order appointing a receiver to receive Burke’s salary, and a garnishee order over his bank account for up to €79,100, the amount that was owed by the teacher over his continued failure to abide by court orders prohibiting him from attending the school.
The court heard today that a Courts Service account being monitored by the receiver has reached €70,000 and growing.
Judge Cahill was told that Burke continued turning up at the Co Westmeath school in defiance of a High Court order directing him to stay away. When questioned by the principal or staff he kept repeating that he had turned up for work.
The High Court has ruled that the decision of the school to suspend Burke on paid leave in August 2022 was a correct one.
Burke has argued this is unlawful and is as a result of his opposition to a direction by the school to address a transgender pupil with they/them pronouns. He has spent months in prison in defiance of court orders.
Burke has at all times denied being in contempt of court and claims he was wrongfully imprisoned because of his objections to “transgenderism”.
Judge Cahill granted short service in relation to a motion to come before the court next Thursday seeking his attachment and committal to prison again.
