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3rd September 2024
11:11am BST
Enoch Burke has been sent to prison for a third time after he breached his court order demanding he stay away from a Westmeath school.
The teacher arrived at the gates of Wilson's Hospital School in Multyfarnham at the start of term last week despite losing a High Court action ordering him to stay away.
Gardaí arrested Mr Burke outside the school, where he was then brought to the High Court and reportedly found to be in contempt of court.
His third imprisonment comes just two months after he was released from prison, where he had been incarcerated since September.
In 2022, the Mayo native became caught up in a gender row at the school, where he was employed as a teacher, over the issue of gender reassignment.
In May of that year, the History and German teacher told his headteacher that he ‘opposed transgenderism’ due to his religious beliefs and stated he would not address a transitioning student by their new name and using ‘they’ pronouns.
The incident sparked a chain of events which saw him suspended from his role while an investigation into his conduct was carried out, eventually leading to his sacking.
However, even after he was put on leave, Burke continued to turn up at the school gates and refused to leave.
The school then took out a temporary court order to keep him away, but the devout evangelist kept turning up.
He had been held in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison for 400 days for contempt of court until his release at the end of June.
In July, Mr Burke failed in his his defamation case in the High Court, where he now faces a huge bill of up to €200,000.
The Evangelical Christian filed a suit against a Sunday Independent article which branded him an 'annoyance' to his fellow prisoners.
According to The Irish Times, Judge Rory Mulcahy ruled that article could not be defamatory given his already damaged public reputation.
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