A pro-life woman arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham has won a settlement from police. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested by British police in 2022 after censorship zone legislation came into effect, targeting pro-life people from protesting, counselling or praying in close proximity to abortion clinics.
When arrested, Vaughan-Spruce was carrying no sign and remained completely silent until approached by police officers. She said she “might” have been praying at the time of her arrest. For that, she was charged with four counts of failing to comply with a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) for breaching an exclusion zone outside a Birmingham abortion clinic.
The Crown Prosecution Service subsequently dropped the charges due to “insufficient evidence.” On Tuesday, Vaughan-Spruce was awarded £13,000 and received an apology from West Midlands Police after her arrest was deemed to breach her human rights. She was supported in her legal battle by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) UK. The outcome is a wonderful victory for freedom of speech and assembly.
Welcoming the result, ADF UK legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole said “current plans to introduce censorship zones across England and Wales constitute a dangerous step towards an illiberal society. We ask parliamentarians to think long and hard about whether we are still a free and democratic society and a free and democratic country and if so national censorship zones must be rejected.”
He continued: “A mature democracy should be able to differentiate between criminal conduct and the peaceful exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Isabel, a woman of good character, and who has tirelessly served her community by providing charitable assistance to vulnerable women and children, has been treated no better than a violent criminal. The recent increase in buffer zone legislation and orders is a watershed moment in our country. We must ask ourselves whether we are a genuinely democratic country committed to protecting the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of speech. We are at serious risk of mindlessly sleepwalking into a society that accepts, normalises, and even promotes the ‘tyranny of the majority’”.
