Burke loses defamation action over newspaper article

Jailed teacher Enoch Burke has lost a defamation action against the publishers of the Sunday Independent over an article which wrongly stated he was in danger of being beaten while in prison and had to be moved because he was repeatedly expressing his religious beliefs.

In a judgment issued this morning, Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy said while the contents of the article were untrue, they did not injure his reputation.

Mr Burke took the defamation action against Mediahuis Ireland, publishers of the Sunday Independent over an article published on 9 October 2022 during his first period in jail for contempt of court.

The publisher denied defamation and pleaded fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest.

Judge Mulcahy said the seven paragraphs of the article about which Mr Burke had complained were untrue. He said this was “unfortunate” but the law on defamation did not provide a remedy simply because an untrue statement was made about a person, even if it caused upset.

The judge said it was necessary to establish the untrue statement tended to injure a person’s reputation and the words used in the article were incapable of doing so in this case.

He said “even if they had been capable of injuring his reputation, having regard to the plaintiff’s actual reputation at the time that the Article was published, the article did not and could not have injured his reputation.”

The judge also said if the article had been defamatory, the public interest defence would not have been available to the defendants. He said “although the public may have been interested in stories about Mr Burke at the time that the article was published, there was no “public interest” in the Article and therefore no basis for excusing what might otherwise have been defamatory.

Mr Burke is currently detained in Mountjoy prison for his refusal to comply with court orders not to attend the Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath which has dismissed him over what he says was standing up for his religious beliefs over transgenderism.

His appeal against his dismissal remains pending.