A Christian woman who has twice been cleared over silent prayer near an abortion clinic says she feels “harassed” by police after discovering that she is under investigation for a 3rd time.
West Midlands Police have confirmed that a live investigation is underway into Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a pro-life campaigner who has been praying and offering help to women outside abortion clinics for 20 years.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF UK), which is supporting her, said she had not received any formal notice that she was being investigated and only discovered by accident when a criticism she lodged against the force for harassment was rejected on the grounds that there was currently a live investigation into her.
Vaughan-Spruce has twice been arrested for praying silently near an abortion facility in Birmingham, allegedly breaching the terms of a ‘buffer zone’ in place around the location.
The buffer zone exists under a Public Spaces Protection Order and bans “expressions of approval or disapproval” of abortion.
After each previous arrests, the costs were dropped and he or she eventually won £13,000 in compensation from West Midlands Police for wrongful arrest.
As Vaughan-Spruce has continued to hope near the abortion facility on a weekly basis, ADF said that officers have been seen watching her pray silently and that “on regular occasions” she has been approached by officers and asked if she is praying.
Reacting to the news that she is under investigation again, Vaughan-Spruce commented: “Despite being fully vindicated multiple times after being wrongfully arrested for my thoughts, it’s unbelievable that I’m still being harassed by police for silently pray in that area, and yet again find myself under investigation for a similar prayers I actually have said for twenty years.
She added, “Silent prayer cannot possibly be a criminal offense – everyone has the precise to freedom of thought.”
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) last yr published guidance on the policing of buffer zones after they were rolled out across England and Wales.
The zones make it a criminal offence to “influence any person’s decision to access or facilitate abortion services at an abortion clinic” inside 150m of an abortion facility. They also make it a criminal offense to obstruct individuals from accessing abortion clinics, or “cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person in reference to a call to access, provide or facilitate abortion services at an abortion clinic”.
The guidance from the CPS suggested that praying silently inside an abortion clinic buffer zone may not at all times be treated as a criminal act.
“A one who carries out any of those activities [including silent prayer] inside a protected access zone won’t necessarily commit a criminal offence,” it states.
“Prosecutors will need to think about not only all of the facts and circumstances of the actual conduct but in addition the context wherein the conduct takes place.”
The guidance was issued just weeks after Adam Smith-Connor was prosecuted for praying silently in an abortion clinic buffer zone in Bournemouth. He was sentenced to a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £9,000 in costs.
West Midlands Police confirmed that it has approached the CPS for advice on next steps regarding Vaughan-Spruce.
ADF believes the investigation into Vaughan-Spruce to be the primary real test case of the CPS guidance.
Jeremiah Igunnubole, legal counsel for ADF International, said: “’Buffer zones’ are amongst essentially the most concerning frontiers of censorship in the fashionable west.
“We all stand against harassment and abuse, however the ‘buffer zone’ law broadly bans ‘influence’, which is being interpreted by law enforcement officials to focus on innocent individuals who occur to face in a certain place and imagine a certain thing.
“We will proceed to robustly challenge this unjust censorship, and support Isabel’s right to think and imagine freely.”
West Midlands Police have been contacted for comment.
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