"Irish High Court freezes Enoch Burke’s bank account, orders creditor to collect fees from fine"

The Irish High Court ordered embattled teacher Enoch Burke’s bank account to be frozen while his unpaid court fees are collected.

On Tuesday, March 18, Mr. Justice David Nolan ordered a conditional garnishee over Burke’s bank account, temporarily freezing it, and appointed a creditor to collect the €79,100 ($86,000 USD) the former teacher has been fined from his salary. Burke has faced intense persecution since he refused to address a male student by his preferred pronouns.

The order comes after the state had asked the High Court earlier this month to appoint a receiver to collect Burke’s outstanding fines from his salary.

“Burke has been repeatedly fined, and jailed, after he refused to use they/them pronouns for a transgender student back in 2022. This is truly horrific,” one X user reacted to the court’s decision...

Burke’s case began in the summer of 2022. A teacher of German, history, and politics at a Church of Ireland school, he refused to address a male student – reportedly in the process of “transitioning” – as a girl and also refused to use the pronoun “they.”

Burke defied the school principal’s order to use the “transgender” pronoun and was subsequently placed on paid administrative leave on August 22, 2022, while the school board held a disciplinary process. After Burke ignored this and continued to attend the school, he was then handed an interim order on August 30 to prevent him from entering the school that he also ignored.

School authorities then summoned the police and Burke was arrested for contempt of court on September 5, 2022, while sitting in an empty classroom in the school. He was sentenced to jail for an unspecified period until he purged his contempt of court or the court decreed otherwise.

“Transgenderism is against my Christian belief. It is contrary to the scriptures, contrary to the ethos of the Church of Ireland and of my school,” the teacher said during his 2022 sentencing. “I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, actions not words, but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl.”

Days before Christmas 2022, he was released by the High Court after the judge argued that Burke was using his imprisonment for his own ends.