Enoch Burke released from prison, immediately returns to school that fired him

Enoch Burke has once again attempted to enter the school he has been ordered to stay away from almost immediately after being released from prison.

The former teacher arrived outside Wilson’s School in Co Westmeath, Ireland, less than 24 hours after he was released from prison following his refusal to stay away from the school.

Mr Burke was jailed in late November after yet again failing to abide by a court order to stay away from his former workplace.

He was suspended and subsequently fired from his position at the school in 2022 after confronting the head teacher over his refusal to use a trans student’s correct name and pronouns.

Over the last three years, he has been arrested and jailed multiple times for showing up at the school despite a court order preventing him from doing so. He has spent over 500 days in jail and accumulated around €225,000 (£198,118) in fines.

According to RTE, Mr Burke was yet again spotted outside the school gates at around 9:20am on Thursday (15 January) and was prevented from entering the grounds by security.

Alongside a small group of supporters, he professed that he had a “duty” to attend his former workplace, claiming his dismissal was an “insult to the institutions of the state”.

“I have a job here. Students in here know me, and they know my personal character,” he told press. “That’s my vision, that I would be a good teacher to them.”

High Court judge Justice Cregan said Mr Burke’s routine refusal to abide by his court order was a “deliberate, sustained, and concerted attack” on the authority of civil courts and the rule of law.

He described the evangelist as a “baleful and malign presence” and an “intruder, stalking the school, its teachers, and its pupils.”

During a hearing earlier this week, the High Court judge said he was releasing Mr Burke for “one reason and one reason only, interest in the administration of justice” after suggesting Mr Burke had raised “credible” issues against the Disciplinary Appeals Panel (DAP).

The release, he said, was on the condition that he did not trespass on school property. If he does, the judge said that the High Court would have “no hesitation in bringing him back to prison”.

While Mr Burke insists that the arrests are over his views on “transgenderism”, justice Cregan said last year that this was not the case, but that it was about his refusal to abide by the court’s instructions.

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