Judge rejects Enoch Burke's 'errors' claims after family members removed from High Court

The judge said: 'Mr Burke is being imprisoned because he is trespassing on other people's property. No more. No less.'

In an earlier judgment, the judge said Enoch Burke (pictured) 'doesn't just trespass onto the school grounds; he goes right into the heart of the school, roaming around its corridors when he has no right to do so'. File picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

A High Court judge has comprehensively rejected claims by jailed schoolteacher Enoch Burke that there were "errors " in an earlier judgment jailing him over his repeated trespass on Wilson's Hospital School in Westmeath where he was once employed.

Mr Justice Brian Cregan also reminded Enoch Burke, who joined the High Court by video link from Mountjoy Prison that he has the "keys to his own prison" and he only "has to give an undertaking that he will obey court orders — like every other citizen in the country".

The judge added: "The idea that Mr Burke is being imprisoned because of his religious beliefs is nonsense. This court does not imprison people for their religious beliefs. Mr Burke is being imprisoned because he is trespassing on other people's property. No more. No less."

Removal of Burke family members

Members of Mr Burke's family — his mother Martina and siblings Ammi and Isaac — were physically removed by gardaí from the High Court on Tuesday when Mr Justice Brian Cregan told them they could not be present due to their repeated disruptive behaviour at past hearings.

The judge then rose to give the gardaí an opportunity to remove them without further disruption to the court.

The trio had arrived earlier sat in the front bench, usually reserved for senior barristers, while Enoch was in picture online from Mountjoy Prison in what appeared to be a boardroom with a long table.

Isaac was pulled out of the seat first by a garda and then lifted bodily with one garda holding his legs and the other under his arms. 

Martina and Ammi continued to stay sitting and despite repeated requests by a garda sergeant to leave, they refused and repeatedly said they had a constitutional right to be in the courtroom.

They refused to leave and Ammi was the first to be pulled out and her mother followed surrounded by gardaí. Ammi eventually had to be pulled out the door.

Mr Burke remained online even after the judge had given his judgment but interrupted again when the court resumed to continue other business. The judge ordered he be muted and at that stage he picked up his belongings from the table he was sitting at and left the screen.

Written judgment

In his written judgment, Mr Justice Cregan said Mr Burke is in prison because he has breached a court order not to trespass on school property. "He is not in prison because of his views on transgenderism which he is fully entitled to have".

He would be released if he purged his contempt, he said, and must give an undertaking to the court not to trespass again although the issue of the outstanding €225,000-plus fines remains outstanding.

He does not have to give any undertaking to follow a school principal's direction to call a child "they/them" — the reason he claims he was dismissed from Wilson's Hospital.

"He does not have to stop protesting against transgenderism. He does not have to change his religious beliefs one iota", he said.

Statements by him and his family that he is in prison because of his opposition to transgenderism "are lies", he said.

Mr Burke, the judge said, "seems to be trying to inhabit a reality of his own, with his own 'Alice in Wonderland' language, where words mean what he says they mean, where his lies are the truth, and everything everyone else says are lies."

The court, the judge said, is concerned with what are, objectively speaking, the facts and truth of the situation.

The judge was satisfied there were no errors in his judgment including his use of the words "baleful" about him and "malign". He also rejected Mr Burke's complaint about the use of the word "roaming" and "stalking" around the school.

In his earlier judgment, the judge said: "There is something deeply unsettling about Mr Burke's presence at the school.

"He doesn't just trespass onto the school grounds; he goes right into the heart of the school, roaming around its corridors when he has no right to do so.

He is a baleful malign presence, an intruder, stalking the school, its teachers and pupils.

"But this is a deliberate strategy: a strategy of confrontation. Confront the principal, confront the bishop, confront the school, confront the security guards; confront the courts.”

His verbal aggression was one of the reasons for his dismissal. “His verbal aggression towards this court was, in my experience, unprecedented,” the judge said. The judge adjourned the case again to next Wednesday.