Enoch Burke granted leave to seek injunction against disciplinary appeals panel

The school teacher’s application will be heard by the High Court on Thursday

Enoch Burke was released from Mountjoy Prison on Tuesday morning to present to the High Court. Photograph: Collins Courts
Enoch Burke was released from Mountjoy Prison on Tuesday morning to present to the High Court. Photograph: Collins Courts

Enoch Burke has been granted leave by the High Court to notify a disciplinary appeals panel of his intention to seek an injunction against them.

He is seeking to restrain the three-member panel from issuing their recommendation in his appeal against his dismissal from Wilson’s Hospital School.

The school teacher’s application will be heard on Thursday which, if granted, could be followed by an application for a permanent High Court restraint on the panel taking any further steps in his appeal.

His action, for which he was released from Mountjoy Prison on Tuesday morning to present to the High Court, is against panel members Sean O’Longain, Geraldine O’Brien and Jack Cleary.

The panel has scheduled a meeting for this Saturday to consider further Mr Burke’s appeal.

He is attempting to block their recommendation on the basis, as he told Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell on Tuesday, that panel hearings had been to date devoid of “any sense of natural justice and fair procedures”.

Mr Burke, with the assistance of his brother, Isaac, and sister, Ammi, formally presented his argument to Judge O’Donnell without incident, although several gardaí had been assigned to duty within the court.

Objections by members of the Burke family have led to their being removed from court by gardaí on previous occasions.

Mr Burke, was later returned to prison where he has been imprisoned for contempt of court.

He has been challenging the legality of a decision dismissing him from his position at Wilson’s Hospital School.

Mr Burke kept turning up at the school and refused to stop trespassing, despite the injunctions granted against him, fines totalling hundreds of thousands of euro levelled against him and the school’s employment of security guards to keep him out.

Before being jailed again in November for breaching the order to stop trespassing, Mr Burke repeatedly insisted he was attending at his place of work and had a right to be there.

A disciplinary appeals panel finally heard his appeal against his dismissal, but is reconvening with regard to the matter. Burke has spent just under 600 days in prison on foot of contempt of court orders.

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