Jailed Enoch Burke is still receiving full salary and hasn’t paid a cent of fines
SACKED teacher Enoch Burke has returned to prison, having rejected an opportunity given to him by the High Court to go home with his family.
Judge Mark Sanfey said the situation was ‘extremely unsatisfactory’, noting that Burke remains on full pay, has been in Mountjoy at the State’s expense for over 275 days, and has not paid one cent of legal cost orders or the €88,900 in fines that he owes.
He told Burke that he could make all the arguments he wished concerning his views on ‘transgenderism’, and the role of those views in his initial suspension from St Wilson’s Hospital school in the summer of 2022, at his forthcoming appeal against his dismissal, or in a further challenge at the Court of Appeal.
He said the only function he had was to assess whether Burke
‘You refuse to obey the order’
would obey an order of the High Court to stay away from his former school in Co. Westmeath.
‘The necessity to have you placed in Mountjoy is because you refuse to obey the order of the court,’ the judge said.
Referring to Burke’s submissions, which related to the school principal’s report underpinning his suspension, he said: ‘No court would have any problem with having this argument in the right place, at the right time.
‘There is no reason why you need to breach the order of Judge [Alexander] Owens in order to be able to make this argument.
‘You are being paid your full salary. All you are being asked by the court is to obey its order.
He added that ‘you cut down greatly my room for manoeuvre if you refuse to do so’.
He continued: ‘If you undertake to me right now that you are prepared to obey the order of this court, you can leave with your family today.’
Alex White SC, for the school’s board of management, said it was the school’s ‘fervent wish’ that Burke would comply with the order, adding that ‘there would be no need for his continued detention in prison’ if he did so.
Judge Sanfey asked what steps the school had taken to explore alternative solutions, such as making an application to court to sequester Burke’s assets, in order for the €700 daily fines to be paid.
Those fines were imposed on
January 27 last year, in a bid to make Burke comply with the order to stay away from the school, after an earlier spell of three months in prison had failed to change his mind.
Mr White confirmed that the fines had never been paid, nor any legal costs orders.
He agreed to bring evidence before the court in late March concerning what steps have been taken by the school.
Burke was sent back to prison in September of last year.
His mother Martina, father Seán, brother Isaac and sister Ammi remained in the Round Hall of the
Four Courts while the hearing took place, having been banned from attending by the judge, based on their previously disruptive behaviour.
Enoch Burke told the court that it was ‘a disgrace’ that ‘honest, law-abiding, decent people’ should be barred in such a way.
Brandishing the report by former principal Niamh McShane, he accused the court of ‘refusing to acknowledge the truth’ about why he had been suspended in the first place.
He claimed Ms McShane had written that she believed his views on transgenderism made him ‘a danger to students’. He said: ‘I would beg of the court, I would plead with it to change its tack on this matter, to depart from making up stories, from lying about the reasons I am coming in here in chains today, to acknowledge the truth of what is in the report.’
Mr White said that he wished to clarify that, from the school board’s perspective, ‘Mr Burke is entitled to hold such views as he wishes’. He added: ‘He is entitled to think those views. I don’t want there to be any question in anybody’s mind… There’s a dispute relating to whether those views should prevail in a school, or regarding his conduct in raising those views.’
Judge Sanfey concluded that, ‘with regret’, Burke had given him no basis on which to alter the direction that he remain in prison until he agrees to abide by the court order.
He said he would list the matter for hearing again on the last day of this legal term, March 22.
‘He is entitled to think those views’