It appears as though everyone has an opinion on the situation that sees teacher Enoch Burke landed in prison.
He’s there because of contempt of court, failing to stay away from his school where a disciplinary process was to take place over his alleged questioning of the Principal who was insisting that all teachers use one particular young child’s preferred pronoun.
Enoch Burke will never call a boy a girl, and has garnered much support in his endeavour.
However, in court today, it was announced that his Appeal will not be heard until February 16th, meaning that Enoch Burke will remain in Mountjoy for Christmas and will be in prison for four more months at least.
Meanwhile, Enoch Burke is suing the Sunday Independent newspaper over what is described as “false and defamatory” allegations that he was moved to a separate part of Mountjoy prison because he was annoying other inmates.
According to RTE, the High Court was informed of the developments on Thursday, after the article was published in last weekend’s Sunday Independent newspaper.
Meanwhile, Enoch Burke has officially lodged an appeal against a High Court injunction that sees him sleeping in Mountjoy prison for over a month.
It’s understood that the hearing will be mentioned at the end of this month but will not be heard until after Christmas, meaning that Enoch Burke is likely to spend Christmas itself in prison.
The teacher is now moving into his 5th week in Mountjoy Prison mixing with hardened criminals all from an event where he wouldn’t call a student “they”.
Burke isn’t in prison for that however, he remains in prison because he continued to do his job and go to school to teach even though he was suspended after an alleged row with the Principal who told Burke and the rest of the staff the small child would be referred to as ‘they’.
Burke refused to call a “boy a girl”. The case ended up in court where he last appeared on September 14th. He was arguing that the disciplinary proceedings brought against him by the school were both unlawful and unconstitutional.
The Judge however saw things differently and appeared to be somewhat angry over having to be in court with Mr Burke again.
She told him that he would be informed of any proceedings in the case and sent him back to Mountjoy Prison.
The teacher has said that he will never call a boy a girl in a row over a child wanting to use the pronoun ‘they’ when being addressed.
Enoch Burke has been sent back to Mountjoy on that date as the disciplinary meeting connected with him is pushed back in his school with no new date being announced. It was meant to take place today but wasn’t held due to Burke appearing in court.
The court did not announce when Enoch Burke will be back in court. He’s now one month in prison from Wednesday and moves into his 5th week prison all starting from a teacher not wanting to refer to a student as the pronoun ‘they’.
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