{"id":328820,"date":"2026-03-04T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/328820\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:08:08","slug":"judge-sentences-enoch-burkes-mother-and-sister-to-prison-for-two-weeks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/328820\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge sentences Enoch Burke\u2019s mother and sister to prison for two weeks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jailed teacher Enoch Burke<\/a>\u2019s mother Martina and sister Ammi<\/a> must be arrested and imprisoned for two weeks over their \u201cdisgraceful\u201d contempt of court, a High Court<\/a> judge has ordered.<\/p>\n

Neither woman was in court on Wednesday when Judge Brian Cregan found them guilty of contempt \u201cin the face of the court\u201d over behaviour, including \u201croaring and shouting\u201d and \u201cintense and venomous\u201d interruptions, that led to a court hearing on February 20th being suspended.<\/p>\n

This was a \u201cparadigmatic\u201d case of contempt, he said. It was clear Enoch Burke and other members of his family, including his mother and his sister Ammi, believed they were above the law but they were \u201cdefinitely\u201d not, he said.<\/p>\n

There was no exemption for \u201cChristian evangelicals\u201d or other groups, he said. \u201cWe live in a democracy governed by the rule of law and not a theocracy governed by the Burke family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having been told both women were at their place of employment, the judge directed they should be arrested and committed to prison.<\/p>\n

Saying it was \u201clong past time to call a halt to this family circus\u201d, Cregan said he intended to direct that both women and Isaac Burke, a brother of Enoch Burke, should not be permitted to attend any further hearings involving Enoch Burke except via remote link.<\/p>\n

If they wished to object to that, they could file submissions within three weeks, he said.<\/p>\n

The judge said he would send his judgment and other judgments to the Law Society\u2019s relevant disciplinary committee for consideration on whether it should open a disciplinary investigation into Ammi Burke, a qualified solicitor.<\/p>\n

While Ammi Burke was not acting as a solicitor in her brother\u2019s case, her conduct on February 20th was \u201ca deliberate and brazen contempt of court\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n

Ammi Burke has been repeatedly removed from the courts by garda\u00ed and he had \u201cnever encountered a solicitor who behaved in this way\u201d. <\/p>\n

Her behaviour was \u201cdisgraceful and indefensible\u201d, particularly given she is a trained solicitor.<\/p>\n

Earlier in his judgment, he said that, during the February 20th hearing, he had taken the \u201conly sensible\u201d course of action in striking out a challenge by Enoch Burke to the conduct by a disciplinary appeals panel of his appeal over his dismissal from Wilson\u2019s Hospital School.<\/p>\n

The challenge was rendered moot or pointless after two members of the panel resigned and the third could not sit on any new panel, with the effect Burke had achieved what he wanted, a new panel with three different members, he said. <\/p>\n

Burke, who was brought from prison for the February 20th hearing, had objected to the strikeout and wanted the challenge to proceed. Interruptions from his mother and sisters were \u201cso loud and vociferous\u201d the judge could not be heard and the proceedings \u201cdescended into chaos\u201d. <\/p>\n

This had happened during other hearings and the behaviour of the Burkes \u201cis truly exceptional and has to be seen to be believed\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n

Neither woman had advanced any valid defence to the contempt charge when it returned before him last week, he said. <\/p>\n

Martina Burke had \u201ccomplained bitterly\u201d her son was in prison over 600 days but that should be a \u201cbadge of shame\u201d for Enoch Burke because it was 600 days of refusing to obey a court order. If Martina Burke wanted to free her son, she could persuade him to change his \u201cdisastrous course of action\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ammi Burke, in her submissions, had made \u201cmanifestly absurd\u201d, \u201castonishing and indefensible\u201d arguments the judge\u2019s strikeout order was an \u201cappalling abuse of power\u201d and he was \u201cdesperate\u201d to strike out her brother\u2019s case. <\/p>\n

There was \u201csimply no reasoning\u201d with Martina Burke or any of her family whom he had encountered in court, Cregan said. <\/p>\n

\u201cTheirs is a faith-driven ideology which refuses to accept the rule of law. So be it. The rule of law applies to them whether they accept it or not\u201d.<\/p>\n

The \u201cgreat forbearance\u201d shown by the courts in the face of repeated \u201cgross interference with the administration of justice\u201d cannot continue, he said. On each occasion when he was dealing with the Enoch Burke case, up to 10 garda\u00ed had to be present to ensure order and to remove members of the family. This was \u201ccompletely abnormal\u201d and unprecedented.<\/p>\n

After the judgment was delivered, Enoch Burke, speaking via a remote link from Mountjoy Prison, said his mother and sister were \u201cgood people\u201d, people \u201cof integrity\u201d who \u201care guilty of nothing except speaking the truth\u201d. <\/p>\n

The judge\u2019s decision was \u201cnefarious\u201d and \u201cinsulted\u201d a higher judge \u2013 God \u2013 to whom Cregan would have \u201cto account\u201d, Enoch Burke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not threaten me,\u201d the judge responded. When the judge said he had not mocked God, Enoch Burke and his brother Isaac both said he had.<\/p>\n

Isaac Burke, who was standing in the packed court, said his mother and sister were in their places of employment and the court had wrongly criticised their Christian beliefs. <\/p>\n

As Enoch Burke continued to make submissions, his link was muted several times except when he was making arguments concerning his complaint he had been moved from Mountjoy to Castlerea Prison in breach of a court order last January. <\/p>\n

Cregan directed the governor of Mountjoy Prison should be made a notice party to that application and said he would deal with it next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Earlier in his judgment, the judge refused an application by Enoch Burke to refer sworn statements by Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Long\u00e1in, the chair of the disciplinary appeals panel, to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for consideration of perjury. <\/p>\n

\u00d3 Long\u00e1in had strongly denied Burke\u2019s claim he had sworn a false statement that the disciplinary appeals panel, which sat on December 13th last, intended to continue its hearing at a later date. The chair said the day of the hearing concluded \u201cin chaotic scenes\u201d due to behaviour by Burke and some of his family and it was \u201csimply not possible\u201d to explain to Burke the hearing would continue on another day.<\/p>\n

The judge said he would not refer the matter to the DPP for reasons including the court could not make findings on this dispute as the proceedings had been struck out as pointless. <\/p>\n

Another reason for not referring it was because Enoch Burke \u201caccuses everyone of lying\u201d, including judges, counsel and solicitors, he said. \u201cEvery single person who says something with which Mr Burke disagrees is accused of lying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jailed teacher Enoch Burke\u2019s mother Martina and sister Ammi must be arrested and imprisoned for two weeks over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[86615,43693,42,73,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-328820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-ammi-burke","tag-enoch-burke","tag-headlines","tag-high-court","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}