Judge throws out charges against Scottish grandmother arrested in abortion clinic buffer zone

Lawyers for a Scottish grandmother who was arrested for offering conversation in an abortion clinic buffer zone have welcomed a judge’s decision to throw out the costs, declaring it a “free speech victory”.

Rose Docherty, 75, was arrested last September for holding up an indication outside a Glasgow hospital that said “Coercion is a criminal offense, here to speak, only when you want”. She was later charged with “influencing” inside a “buffer zone”.

It was her second arrest for peacefully offering consensual conversation in a “buffer zone”, having been arrested the primary time in February 2025. The Procurator Fiscal decided against prosecution in that instance. 

She was the primary person to be criminally charged under Scotland’s 2024 “buffer zone” law, which forbids the “influencing” of anyone in search of to access “abortion services” inside 200 metres of each hospital in Scotland. Critics say it amounts to censorship.

Her arrest prompted international outcry, with the US State Department calling it “one other egregious example of the tyrannical suppression of free speech happening across Europe”. Scottish Catholic bishops also spoke out in concern over freedom of speech and religion. 

Sheriff Stuart Reid dismissed the costs during a hearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Monday after it emerged that there was little evidence to support the argument that Mrs Docherty had influenced anyone throughout the buffer zone. 

Welcoming the end result, Mrs Docherty said: “I used to be arrested, charged and prosecuted for nothing greater than peacefully inviting consensual conversation in a public space that I used to be permitted to be in. When I used to be arrested, I used to be handcuffed, placed at the back of a police van and placed in a police cell for over two hours, with out a chair to sit down on.

“Simply for being available for the lonely, the afraid and the coerced, I even have been treated like a violent criminal. But thankfully, today the costs have been dismissed. The judge ruled that the costs were irrelevant and that they were a breach of my Article 10 free speech rights.” 

She added, “Nobody ought to be criminalised for consensual conversations and I’m glad that that truth has been vindicated here today.”

Jeremiah Igunnubole, barrister and legal counsel for ADF International, which supported her case, said Mrs Docherty’s “free speech rights have been vindicated”.

He said it was “a big victory for freedom of expression within the United Kingdom” as he called on the police and prosecutors to focus their resources on tackling real crime. 

“The prosecution of Rose has no place in a free and democratic society. No one should ever be criminalised for peaceful speech, least of all for making a peaceful and consensual offer to talk,” he said.

“It is bad enough to be prosecuted for exercising a fundamental right; it is way worse that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service brought these charges without conducting even probably the most basic investigative inquiries, reminiscent of establishing whether anyone had been criminally influenced by Rose’s conduct throughout the ‘buffer zone’.

“This prosecution is emblematic of the deepening free speech crisis within the UK. We call on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, along with Police Scotland, to stop such targeted prosecutions and as a substitute focus their resources on tackling the intense and growing crime problems Scotland faces.

“Above all, this case has starkly exposed the issues in these poorly drafted, censorial, and undemocratic ‘buffer zone’ laws. They have created confusion for law enforcement officials and delivered injustice to Rose and others who’ve endured the humiliation of arrest, imprisonment, and prosecution simply for in search of to like their neighbour and exercise their rights within the gentlest manner possible.” 

He called on Parliament to urgently repeal the buffer zone laws and replace them with “robust protections that genuinely strengthen freedom of expression”.