Enoch Burke has been ordered to pay the legal costs of Wilson’s Hospital School – his former workplace who suspended him – in their successful high Court action against him earlier this year. The German and History teacher was suspended from the Church of Ireland co-educational board school in Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath, after a row regarding transgenderism.
Mr Burke confronted the school’s former principal to voice his objection to transgenderism and the approach taken by the school regarding the student, leading to his suspension.
On 30 August last year, the school was granted a High Court interim injunction stopping him from teaching classes there or being on the school grounds during his suspension. However, Mr Burke has continued his long-running protest on the premises of the school – maintaining a presence there right up until last month, when term finished.
In May, the High Court ruled that the decision to suspend him in August of last year was correct, after the school asked the court to find that it had been right to place Mr Burke on paid leave following the outcome of a disciplinary proceeding. Mr Burke on the other hand had made the argument that was unlawful and as a result of his opposition to transgenderism.
Awarding the legal costs to the school during a costs hearing at the High Court on Monday, judge Mr Justice Alexander Owens made an order restraining the teacher, from Castlebar, Co Mayo, from trespassing on the premises of the school, but said the teacher was not prevented from attending outside the school gates.
In a counterclaim, Mr Burke submitted that the disciplinary process against him should be set aside and was in breach of his constitutional rights, including his right to freedom of expression of his religious beliefs.
Representing himself, in his defence, he said that the case was about religious belief and freedom of conscience – telling the judge he had “exalted religious belief to the most serious of crimes” when he issued his original judgement.
“You said that my religious belief was capable of amounting to gross misconduct if the charge was proved,” he told Mr Justice Owens, adding:
“These proceedings have been initiated against me because I took a stand on my religious belief, I stand by my actions in speaking up, and for the court to now ask me to pay something is punishing me for that religious belief.”
Counsel for the school, Alex White SC, said that the school was seeking damages of €15,000 for Mr Burke having trespassed – in addition to the legal costs involved in the case.
The Irish Independent reports that Mr Burke is now facing a six-figure legal bill. The paper also reports that during Monday’s costs hearing, Justice Owens likened the teacher’s behaviour in court during his trial last year to a play by late Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco, who popularised the Theatre of the Absurd, and to Opera Bouffe.
“It was high farce,” the judge told Mr Burke on Monday according to the paper, adding: “You were engaged in surreal activity for two hours in the court.”
During the hearing, during which Mr Burke was accompanied by his mother Martina and brothers Isaac and Josiah, the former teacher said he was opposing the school’s application for its legal costs.
“For the court now to ask me to pay something is to punish me for my religious belief,” he said.
In response, Mr Burke was asked by the judge to put forward an argument as to why he should not pay the school’s costs. He went on to claim he had been “barred” from court, and that when the “alteration and suppression of discovering of documents” was brought to Justice Owens’s attention, he “refused” to “do anything about it.”
The judge, however, again rejected Mr Burke’s complaints, telling him he had not been “barred” from court during the legal saga.
“It was made clear to you on a number of occasions that you were welcome to come back if you agreed to abide by the rulings of the court,” he said. The judge also told Mr Burke that he had given him more flexibility during the case than other judges may have done.
Mr Burke responded to this by telling him, “I have never witnessed before a judge who would conduct himself as you did.” He also said that the trial had been “one-sided” and that Justice Owens had “made a show of himself.”
“You sat there and you laughed and you mocked,” Mr Burke told him. The judge insisted the trial was “one-sided only because you decided not to attend.”
He went on to tell Burke that his submissions “are not to persuade but simply to harangue” – adding that he had heard nothing to persuade him to abandon the normal rule whereby the losing side pays the winning side’s legal costs.
“The normal rule is that the costs follow the event. There has to be exceptional reasons to depart from that,” he said, adding that exceptional reasons “do not include that you disagree with the judgement.”
He told Mr Burke: “We are not likely to agree with each other, Mr Burke. We could be here until tomorrow and not agree on it.” In addition to awarding the school its legal costs, the judge also made a formal declaration that the suspension was lawful.
As recently as last month, Mr Burke spoke about the support he claims to have received from pupils at the Westmeath School, telling the Sunday Times he had been “mobbed” by supportive students on the last day of term.
Speaking to the paper, he showed no sign of abandoning his demonstrations at the school gates, despite a fine of €700 per diem that had been imposed by the High Court several months ago for his ongoing breach of orders requiring him to stay away from the school’s premises.
“I was mobbed by some senior students wanting me to sign their shirts, wanting autographs, wanting pictures and wishing me well.
“I think it’s very regrettable in our country that children have a greater conscience and a greater grasp of right and wrong than the judge in the chair that’s getting paid €250,000. I think that’s a very sad state for our country to be in,” he said.
Mr Burke has repeatedly criticised the Irish media for neglecting to “ask the questions that they should be asking.” In an interview given to The Irish Independent in February, he said that “certain journalists and media outlets” had taken it upon themselves to paint his objection to transgenderism and the school’s approach in “a very dark light and in the darkest possible hues.”
“At the same time, they have neglected to ask the questions that they should be asking,” he said.