An Evangelical Christian teacher, involved in a row over how to address a transgender student, has been sent back to prison after again breaching a court order which banned him from trespassing on the school premises.
Enoch Burke has been engaged in a long-running legal battle with Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath, Ireland, after refusing to address the pupil by their new pronouns.
Burke, who was dismissed in 2023, claims he is being denied his religious rights.
The school maintains that he has been repeatedly jailed for flouting court orders and continuing to trespass on private property.
A video, posted on X under Burke’s account, showed him at the gates of Wilson’s Hospital School on Monday, where he was arrested and driven away in a police car.
The caption on the post said he was detained after “refusing to affirm transgender ideology” which was “being forced upon children”.
He has been fined more than 225,000 euros and claims he has now been imprisoned for more than 550 days.
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Burke’s imprisonment has been embraced by right-wing commentators, in Ireland and the US, as evidence of the oppression of religious freedoms.
Sky News was present at Wilson’s Hospital School on a previous occasion when Burke was arrested by Irish police.
He told Sky News that he detested prison, which he described as “a terrible place”, but said that his rights were being breached.
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Burke was released from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, on Wednesday to prepare for an appeal against his dismissal from his former school.
His release was on the condition that he would not return, but Burke appeared there on Thursday, Friday and again on Monday.
He was stopped from walking into the school by a security guard at the gates.
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Contempt of court
Addressing the High Court in Dublin on Monday, Burke said: “I’m not in contempt of court, I’ve the utmost respect for court.”
Mr Justice Brian Cregan replied “nonsense”.
When asked to explain alleged trespassing, Mr Burke said: “I did turn up at my place of work”
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In response, Mr Cregan said: “You have been dismissed, it is not your place of work, what part of that sentence do you not understand.”
Mr Cregan found him in contempt of court and made an order for him to be “committed immediately” to Mountjoy Prison.
At the school on Friday, Burke told reporters he had returned to Wilson’s Hospital as “I teach here” and that he was there “to work”.
