The High Court has ordered the immediate reimprisonment of teacher Enoch Burke.
None of the Burke family were present in court on Tuesday when Mr Justice Brian Cregan gave a judgment in relation to Mr Burke’s continuing contempt of orders not to trespass on Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath.
The judge said it served no useful purpose to impose further fines on him because he had continued to breach the court orders and had not voluntarily paid a euro towards the fines.
It was also clear the appointment of security guards had failed to deter him from entering the school premises and he continued to confront the guards on a daily basis, he said.
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He was also recording his interactions with them and posting them on X and constantly waiting for an opportunity to enter the grounds when the guards are not present. He had also driven a number of cars on to the grounds while ignoring the guards, he said.
Despite being repeatedly jailed for contempt and repeatedly given his liberty by the courts, Mr Burke had repeatedly abused that freedom by trespassing again, the judge said.
“There is now, in my view, no longer any option left to enforce the order of the court other than to imprison Mr Burke again for contempt of court for repeated and flagrant breaches of the court order,” he said.
The judge ordered his immediate committal to prison until a review date is set by the court or he wishes to purge his contempt.
The judge also said he intended to invoke criminal contempt of court, which unlike civil contempt, which is for disobeying orders, is contempt for disrupting the court.
He asked that the Attorney General also bring criminal contempt proceedings against other members of the family – his mother Martina, his brother Isaac and sister Ammi – as well as against Enoch himself.
The judgment came in the wake of weeks of continuing trespass by Mr Burke and by other members of his family on Wilson’s Hospital School.
He was a teacher at the school until his suspension three years ago over his behaviour in reaction to being directed by the then principal to call a transgender student by they/them pronouns and call them by a new name.
He has claimed his jailing – for more than 500 days at different stages over the last three years – is over his opposition to transgenderism and in standing up for his Christian beliefs under the Constitution.
Mr Justice Cregan said this case was not about transgenderism.
He said if Mr Burke had been directed by the court to comply with the principal’s direction, then it would have been about transgenderism.
What this case involved was the “most deliberate, sustained and concerted attack by Mr Burke, and other members of the Burke family, on the authority of the civil courts and the rule of law in this country in recent times”, he said.
Mr Burke was imprisoned not over his transgenderism views but for contempt of court because he breached court orders not to trespass on school property, the judge said.
“I am sure that any of the pupils of Wilson’s Hospital, from transition year up, would understand that distinction. It is not difficult to understand.”
The judge outlined the behaviour of the Burke family members during four hearings over the last few weeks, when they repeatedly interrupted the proceedings and called the judge a liar.
He also rejected a legal submission by Mr Burke on why the 2023 High Court judgment definitively finding he was in breach of the orders was “unstateable”.
Mr Burke “presents himself to the court as an utterly intransigent litigant who is so blinkered in his approach to all issues that he believes that only he is right and that everybody else is wrong”, the judge said.
Mr Justice Cregan said he “seems unwilling to acknowledge the simple distinction” between issues of transgenderism and issues in relation to court orders.
The rule of law applies to everyone in this country and Mr Burke has continued to trespass, he said. “One wonders how would Mr Burke, and other members of the Burke family, respond if a group of people trespassed on their family home and garden and refused to leave when asked?
“He would undoubtedly seek the protection of the courts. And how would he respond if those same protesters refused to obey court orders restraining their trespass?”
It is when nothing is done about this behaviour that the rule of law breaks down and “a vicious cycle begins”, the judge said.
The judge said he would leave over to next week other matters, including in relation to the seizing of cars that were used to drive him on to the school grounds.
