Enoch Burke has a week to pay a fine of nearly €24,000 for contempt of court or face legal action to enforce payment, the High Court has ruled.
In the ruling, the court said it would take steps to allow Mr. Burke’s former school to enforce a fine covering the period up to March 1.
The court said the appropriate steps the school must take that could include confiscating Mr. Burke’s property.
Judge Brian O’Moore said he was of the opinion that the secondary school teacher was continuing to breach an order ordering him to stay away from Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, either because the penalty was too low or because in in reality it was not to believe that the fine would ever be enforced, reports RTE.
The judge said that “at this stage” he will not increase the €700 daily fine imposed at the end of January. But he said he would “crystallise” the dues by March 1 and “perfect” or finalize a court order allowing the school to take appropriate steps to enforce the fine, reports RTE. As of 4:00 pm on March 23, he said, the school was free to take whatever steps it wanted to enforce the fine.
Judge O’Moore said the€700 daily fine would continue until the injunction was lifted or Mr Burke ceased his contempt. The judge said both parties would be notified of the next review date when Mr. Burke’s compliance with court orders from March 2 would be reviewed.
Justice O’Moore described Mr. Burke’s continued disobedience to the court order as “conscious, ceaseless”, “egregious” and “deliberate”, reports RTE.
He said evidence from the school was that Mr. Burke had violated the injunction “at the first opportunity” and had violated it every day since the fine was imposed on Jan. 26, except on days when the school was officially closed. connection with a running process.
The judge said he received an unusual letter from Mr. Burke yesterday. The letter expressed Mr Burke’s concern that he had been fined for breaching an order, described by Mr Burke as a “false statement,” reports RTE.
In his letter, Mr Burke said the school pleaded “false statements” in his court injunction applications last year, including an injunction granted in September ordering him to stay away from the school he went to, reports RTE.
The court has previously heard that the inaccuracies in the school’s documents are related to the fact that only one parent was present with the student at a meeting in May last year, not both parents as the school had said.
The second inaccuracy was that the then principal, Ms. McShane, was at the meeting when she was absent for most of the meeting.
The Court of Appeal heard earlier this month that attorneys and solicitors are now acting on the student’s behalf.
The court heard that the student’s family was concerned about the false information presented to the court and that there had been correspondence between their lawyers and the school since January, reports RTE.
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