Enoch Burke hit with another legal bill after losing challenge against High Court

Enoch Burke must pay yet another legal bill, after losing a challenge against the High Court order that he must stay away from his former school.

Judge Mark Sanfey ruled on Monday that the school’s board of management was entitled to its legal costs for defending the action, which ran for a day in June.

He said Mr. Burke had made a written submission, in which he argued that he should not be liable for costs, and that to make him pay would be "an affront to justice’"

However, the judge said Mr. Burke’s submissions "are essentially an attempt to re-argue the application, and to raise grounds which have already been rejected by the court."

He said there was nothing Mr. Burke had raised which would suggest it was reasonable of him to have made his application, asking Judge Sanfey to overrule an order given by another High Court judge.

In his original judgment last month, Judge Sanfey had said Mr. Burke could not "pick and choose" which orders he would obey.

He had also said that if Mr. Burke had wanted to challenge the order that was made in the spring of 2023, he could have gone to the Court of Appeal but never did, for "no reasonable or plausible explanation."

He concluded: "The application was inappropriate and should not have been made.

"The plaintiff [school] has been entirely successful in defending it. The only 'affront to justice' would be if the plaintiff were not awarded its costs of the application."

Mr. Burke now faces costs orders made in a number of different High Court cases he has lost. These include applications taken by the school to restrain him from trespassing, a challenge he took concerning the members of a panel set to hear his appeal against his dismissal, and a failed defamation action against the Sunday Independent.

He has also amassed over €88,000 in fines for attending at the school in defiance of the court order.

Last week, Mr. Burke returned once more to the school which suspended him two years ago, in open defiance of the High Court.

When the former teacher was released from Mountjoy in late June this year, after more than 400 days in prison for contempt of court, he was warned by Judge Sanfey that he would be back behind bars if he attempted to revisit the school as the autumn term began.

Despite that order, Mr. Burke was again seen at Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath.

It is understood that he arrived for an induction day for first-year pupils who will be boarding there.

Although he was suspended two years ago, and dismissed last January, he continues to receive his salary pending his appeal against that dismissal.

He told reporters last week: "This is where I should be today. This is my workplace. I am here to teach, this is my job. This is where I work."

*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.