Enoch Burke has described his release from Mountjoy Prison this afternoon as a “quick fix” and an effort by the judge to “relieve his own conscience.”
Mr Burke was speaking to a number of reporters outside Mountjoy Prison after a High Court judge ordered his release so that he can prepare for an upcoming hearing.
Mr Burke, who was sent back to prison before Christmas, has brought new High Court proceedings over the makeup of a disciplinary panel due to hear his appeal against his dismissal. He has claimed that a member of the panel, teacher Geralidine O’Brien, is objectively biased and has prejudged the matter.
Speaking in the High Court, Justice Brian Cregan said that he had decided upon reflection on papers in Mr Burke’s latest legal challenge, that he needed time to focus on issues in the case and properly prepare for the hearing. However, Justice Cregan has warned that if Mr Burke does return to school, he risks being returned to prison.
The judge said today that the former German and history teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, who has spent 560 days in prison for breaching a court order, has an “unparalleled ability” to shoot himself in the foot.
The release comes despite Mr Burke’s indication that he will indeed return to the school, where he insists he is still employed, and has a right to be. The judge added that the decision had been made on the basis that Mr Burke would not return to the school, and that he would be sent back to prison if he did.
In December, the same High Court judge said he did not understand why Mr Burke had been released in the past during his previous spells in jail. He gave a review date of 3rd March, adding that Mr Burke had the ability to purge his content at any time.
At the time, the Burke family hit out at Enoch’s imprisonment as “an effective life sentence.”
Addressing reporters as he made his way out of Mountjoy today, Mr Burke hit out at the decision as “a travesty” and “a stitch-up”:
“This is a travesty today. I was told, as you know, by Judge Cregan, just a matter of weeks ago, that I was to be in here for life, that I was going to be behind these bars until I broke. But today we have a different story. I’m coming out here; no sense to it, no reason to it. This is the same judge who said I’d never get out – no Christmas holidays, no Easter holidays – and now I’m being released. And there’s no sense to it at all.”
‘HE KNOWS I’LL BE AT MY WORKPLACE’
Mr Burke continued: “The worst part of this is I’m not being given back my job. I’m not being embraced back by Wilson’s Hospital School today. The judge isn’t saying, ‘Put him back in his classroom where he belongs.’ It’s a quick fix. It’s just an effort by Judge Cregan to relieve his own conscience.”
“To none will we sell, to none will we deny or delay right or justice. That’s what the Magna Carta said 800 years ago. But that’s what we have here today. It’s just another delay. It’s putting you out on the streets – put them out again – but no deliverance of right or justice by our courts,” added Burke.
He further insisted: “I have a right to say I cannot call a young boy ‘they’. I have a right to do that. I have a right to my Christian belief, as does everyone in this country. But it’s not being given to us. Instead we have this today, and I would say simply today: This is a trap by Judge Cregan. It’s a stitch-up letting me out. Judge Cregan knows well where I will be tomorrow. He knows I’ll be at my workplace; he knows I’m employed there, I’m a teacher and a man of principle and I do my duty.
“But he’s letting me out because he sees the public mood changing; to curry a little bit of favour for himself,” said Mr Burke before he was snapped being driven away in a taxi.