Former teacher jailed after school transgender row joined by dad in prison after courtroom assault
19 December 2024, 12:45
A former teacher jailed for failing to stay away from the school that sacked him for refusing to call a transgender pupil “they” has been joined in prison by his father.
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Enoch Burke was jailed for contempt of court after he repeatedly refused to stay away from the school he was suspended from, despite a court order.
He was sacked after a row over refusing to call a transgender pupil their preferred pronoun.
His father, Seán Burke, has now been hit with a two month sentence for assaulting a garda at his son’s appeal hearing against Wilson's Hospital School in Ireland.
Burke, who is in his 60s, rejected the opportunity of a suspended sentence as he refused to sign a bond saying that he would be well behaved and peace-abiding for a year.
He chose to represent himself in court and did not accept the guilty verdict that was initially delivered to him at a District Court in May.
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Chaos broke out in the courtroom when Enoch Burke lost his appeal, with daughter Ammi, 33, accused of obstructing another Irish police officer during the same incident.
She later won her own appeal and was cleared of all charges.
Meanwhile, wife Martina was escorted from the hearing for shouting at judges and interjecting.
Enoch Burke has been in prison since September 2023. He has been jailed for contempt of court on more than one occasion.
It came after his suspension from Wilson's Hospital School in County Westmeath in August 2022 for confronting his then-principal at a school event.
He refused to address a student transitioning gender with a new name and using their preferred “they” pronoun.
Burke continued to show up for his timetabled hours at the school, later receiving a court injunction to prevent him from doing so.
He breached the court order and was jailed in September 2022 before being released three months later. Burke was jailed again in September 2023 for breaching a second court order.
He has claimed he was wrongfully jailed due to his objections to "transgenderism" after the school told him to call his former student by a different pronoun.
Burke has denied being in contempt of court at all times.
