Prisoner of conscience Enoch Burke will not be released at Christmas or Easter, according to a High Court judge in Dublin.
Breaking with precedent, Mr. Justice Brian Cregan said he did not understand why Burke was even allowed out to appeal.
Burke—a Christian schoolteacher arrested and jailed for refusing to accept a pupil’s ‘trans’ identity—stated:
Those imprisoned for contempt were not treated in this way and were released despite not having cleared themselves of the charge.
While working as a teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School, Burke was suspended in 2022, dismissed, and then jailed for confronting the school principal over the use of ‘they/them’”’ pronouns for a transgender student. The teacher said this prevented him from exercising his constitutional and religious beliefs.
Burke went on to appeal the verdict unsuccessfully, which again saw him sentenced to a custodial term for contempt. In the verdict, the judge asserted:
Mr. Burke had a baleful and malign presence—an intruder, stalking the school, its teachers and its pupils.
Creegan added that there was a level of “verbal aggression, unregulated anger, and lack of self-control” making Burke “a potential danger to pupils and teachers of the school.”
Such comments raise serious questions about the independence and impartiality of the judge, according to Burke, who asked the court to delete the remarks—while getting into a dispute over the meaning of the word “stalking.” The court then began to quibble over the dictionary definition submitted by Burke, with the judge stating
One needs to be more intellectually rigorous if you are asking me to set it aside.
Burke’s family was present at the hearing but was removed from the courtroom for “disruptive behavior.” The judge set March 3rd as the date for a retrial of the case. In addition, the previous ruling was amended, asking the chief prosecutor to initiate criminal proceedings against Burke’s family members. The judge also stated that if the prosecution did not do so, the court would initiate proceedings on its own initiative.
