Jailed teacher Enoch Burke has told the High Court that an “utterly false” newspaper article published about him in October 2022 was a “character assassination”.
Mr Burke said he was “held up to ridicule” as someone who should be “shunned by society” and made the subject of the “most damning and insulting and denigrating epithets” because of the story published by the Sunday Independent.
The German and history teacher was brought to court from Mountjoy Prison on Tuesday to open his defamation action against Mediahuis Ireland, as publisher of the Sunday Independent. He is also suing Sunday Independent editor Alan English and reporter Ali Bracken.
The newspaper ran a story on Mr Burke on October 9th, 2022, during his first period in jail for contempt over his refusal to comply with a court order to refrain from attending at the Wilson’s Hospital School in Co Westmeath, which dismissed him for what he says was standing up for his religious beliefs over transgenderism.
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The article quoted unnamed sources in support of its statement that Mr Burke had been moved to a new cell in Mountjoy because he was “annoying” other prisoners and had been repeatedly expressing his outspoken views and beliefs.
The newspaper strongly denies defamation and pleads fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest.
Mr Burke, representing himself, said “every single paragraph” of the story was “untrue” and the newspaper was “selling a lie” about him to the public.
An apology published more than two months after publication was “so inadequate” as to be an insult, he added.
The impact was “doubly damning” because of his profession as a teacher, which is based on the principles of trust, respect, integrity and care, he said.
“It was deeply hurtful to see all of these good qualities – my ability to get on with peers and so on – in one swoop utterly effaced,” he told Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy.
Mr Burke said it came at a “critical time” ahead of his appeal hearing and was part of a “continued effort” by the defendants to make him a “pariah” in the community.
He said he has “always had an excellent relationship with prisoners in Mountjoy” and was not transferred as claimed in the article. His fellow inmates have respect for him and he has “a lot of empathy” for them, he said.
On the night of his arrival in the jail, Mr Burke said, prisoners told him they recognised him from the television, agreed with what he was doing and were “singing the praises”.
One man left him a packet of digestive biscuits, while he has also been gifted clothes, haircuts and a pair of tennis shoes, he said.
“The kindness, the generosity and the goodwill of prisoners towards me never stopped,” he said.
It “absolutely was not the case” that he was in danger of getting a beating or that he needed to be placed in a safer environment, he added.
Mr Burke is seeking general and punitive damages for alleged defamation over the publication. He submitted that there has been an “egregious libel” that was “particularly hurtful” to him as a teacher who is held in esteem by students, parents and others in the community.
He appealed to Mr Justice Mulcahy to “vindicate [his] good name”.
The case continues on Wednesday.
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