Enoch Burke has been sacked from his position as a teacher at a prestigious Westmeath boarding school.
Wilson’s Hospital School held a disciplinary meeting earlier this week following a row which started last year over his refusal to refer to a transitioning student by a new name and using the “they/them” pronouns.
It was held in The Mullingar Park Hotel on Thursday but was disrupted by members of the Burke family who were upset that the board of management chairman John Roger was absent due to illness and the gardai were called. No decision was made at that meeting.
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Enoch claimed the meeting was a “sham” and shouldn’t have taken place because the chairman was absent.
But on Friday, Enoch was informed at 3.30pm that he was sacked in the presence of chairman John Rogers and school principal Frank Milling when he went to the school.
He has ten working days to appeal the decision. The German and history refused to reveal if he planned on appealing.
Enoch said the decision to sack him was made after what he dubbed the “purported” meeting of the Board of Management.
Earlier this week, he failed in securing a High Court injunction to prevent the disciplinary meeting from happening.
At the time, he said that the disciplinary process had “gone irredeemably wrong”.
He was initially suspended last August on paid administrative leave after a report from the ex-principal Niamh McShane.
She made the decision following an email from Enoch which objected to using they/them pronouns and a student’s new name.
He also publicly voiced his anger about the order at a school event in June. Enoch claims the order is a breach of his religious beliefs who is an Evangelical Christian.
The teacher was then jailed for contempt of court orders in September because he continued to attend the school in breach of a court order.
He then spent 108 days in jail for contempt of court last year but was eventually released on an open-ended basis on December 21 without purging his contempt.
Following the Christmas break, he began attending the school again and insisted he had “done nothing wrong”.
Classes continued as normal at Wilson’s Hospital School and Enoch had no contact with students and was confined to a corridor.
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