A pro-life leader who was arrested and charged on four counts after silently praying on a public street near an abortion facility has had all charges against her dropped, Birmingham Magistrates Court told Christian Voice this morning.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was due to appear today, 2nd February 2023. However, the court office told us that charges were quietly dropped two weeks ago, on 20th January.
Psalm 118:23 This is the LORD’S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.
Police approached Miss Vaughan-Spruce as she stood near the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) Robert Clinic last year in Kings Norton, Birmingham. She was carrying no sign and remained silent. The Police reported they had received complaints from an onlooker who suspected she was praying silently ‘in her mind’.
Click HERE to sign our petition against ‘Buffer Zones’ ..
Click HERE for my video on abortion and ‘Buffer Zones’ .
Arrested and Charged
A West Midlands Police officer approached the campaigner to tell her he had to caution her. He then asked her: ‘What are you here for today?’
‘Physically, I’m just standing here,’ replied Miss Vaughan-Spruce, who lives in Malvern, Worcestershire. ‘Why here of all places? I know you don’t live nearby,’ the officer asked.
She responded: ‘But this is an abortion centre.’ The officer said: ‘’Okay, that’s why you’re stood here. Are you here as part of a protest? Are you praying?’ She denied she was protesting but said: ‘I might be praying in my head, but not out loud.’
The officer then arrested her on suspicion of failing to comply with a public spaces protection order. The police then charged Miss Vaughan-Spruce with four counts of failing to comply with a Public Space Protection Order. However, embarrassed Crown Prosecutors have evidently realised there was no case to answer. In a perplexing move, they have told her lawyers they could ‘reinstate’ the charges. However, CPS guidance says clearly that can only happen if more evidence comes to light. In this case, all the evidence is there already.
Public Space Protection Order
A Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) came into effect around the BPAS centre in September 2022. The measure was introduced by Birmingham City Council and stays in force for three years. It bans individuals from engaging in certain ‘activities’.
The PSPO states: ‘The Activities prohibited by the Order are:
‘i Protesting, namely engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means. This includes but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling,’
It clarifies that: ‘“Protesting” means being in the restricted area (whether by yourself or with others) and engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means. This includes but is not limited to, graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling;’
‘v Displaying any text or images relating directly or indirectly to the termination of pregnancy.’
A note says: ‘“Displaying any text or images relating directly or indirectly to the termination of pregnancy” includes but is not limited to, imagery or textual references to abortion, baby, mum, foetus, soul, kill, hell, murder;’
Three other clauses refer to ‘Interfering with’, ‘Intimidating or harassing’, or ‘Recording or photographing’ a ‘Robert Clinic service user, visitor or member of staff’’.
Thought-crime
It emerged that Miss Vaughan-Spruce was shown pictures of herself outside the abortion facility whilst in the police station. Officers asked if she was praying at that time. She says she could not recall from the pictures whether she was praying at these specific moments, or whether these had been taken at times that she was distracted and thought about other things, such as her lunch. Moreover, she maintains that all her thoughts were equally peaceful and imperceptible and that none should be criminalised.
“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind. Censorship zones purport to ban harassment, which is already illegal. Nobody should ever be subject to harassment. But what I did was the furthest thing from harmful. I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, inside the privacy of my own mind. Nobody should be criminalised for thinking and for praying, in a public space in the UK,” said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, following her arrest for silent prayer.
She should now have a case against the police for wrongful arrest.
March for Life
Miss Vaughan-Spruce is the Director of the UK March for Life. She has volunteered for many years in support of women in crisis pregnancies.
She explained: “I have devoted much of my life to supporting women in crisis pregnancies with everything that they need to make an empowered choice for motherhood. I am also involved in supporting women who have had abortions and are struggling with the consequences of it. I’ve grown close to many of the women I’ve been able to support over the years, and it breaks my heart to know that so many more go through this every day.
“My faith is a central part of who I am, so sometimes I’ll stand or walk near an abortion facility and pray about this issue. This is something I’ve done pretty much every week for around the last 20 years of my life. I pray for my friends who have experienced abortion, and for the women who are thinking about going through it themselves,” she continued. As part of her conditions for bail, Miss Vaughan-Spruce was told she should not contact a local Catholic priest who is also involved in pro-life work. The condition, which would have added a breach of her right of free association to that of freedom of thought and freedom of religion, was later dropped.
However, the police also imposed bail restrictions against Miss Vaughan-Spruce engaging in public prayer even beyond the PSPO area. They stated this was necessary to ‘prevent further offences’. Of course the court is yet to decide whether an offence has been committed at all.
Alliance Defending Freedom
Jeremiah Igunnubole is Legal Counsel for the UK arm of US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF UK), the legal organisation supporting Isabel Vaughan-Spruce.
He said: ‘Isabel’s experience should be deeply concerning to all those who believe that our hard-fought fundamental rights are worth protecting. It is truly astonishing that the law has granted local authorities such wide and unaccountable discretion, that now even thoughts deemed “wrong” can lead to a humiliating arrest and a criminal charge.’
‘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”,’ he continued.
Buffer Zones: stuff of zealots
However, it is far from clear that such PSPO’s and ‘Buffer Zones’ enjoy a majority of support. They are brought in on the demand of pro-abortion activists and parliamentarians.
Nor is it clear whether they will withstand legal process in the European Court of Human Rights. The Buffer Zone in Ealing has been upheld by the Supreme Court, but that case is now on track for Europe. How embarrassing that Christians in the Land of the Book have to turn to the Council of Europe for justice.
Isa 59:14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
The arrest of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce follows a recent incident in Bournemouth where a woman was told to leave by what are described as ‘local authorities’ for praying. She was outside the local PSPO zone around the BPAS abortion building in Ophir Road, Bournemouth. In October it became the fifth centre to have a PSPO in the country, following Ealing, Twickenham, Manchester and the one in Birmingham.
Lockdown Penalty withdrawn in Liverpool
Last year, Rosa Lalor, a grandmother from Liverpool, successfully overturned a fixed penalty given to her while out walking and silently praying near an abortion facility. The penalty was given under lockdown restrictions in February 2021. Mrs Lalor had been questioned as to why she was outdoors and answered she was “walking and praying”. The officer decided she wasn’t praying in a place of worship, and did not have a “reasonable excuse” to be outdoors at that time. He claimed she was there to “protest”. The grandmother was arrested, detained, and issued a penalty.
Merseyside Police eventually conceded her detention was wrong. Mrs Lalor was acting within her rights, indeed having a “reasonable excuse” to be outdoors praying. The similarity with Isabel Vaughan-Spruce’’s case is that Mrs Lalor says she too was ‘praying in the privacy of my own mind.’
Buffer Zone Vote
MPs voted on Tuesday 18th October 2022 in favour of installing buffer zones 150 meters around all abortion clinics and hospitals in England and Wales. 297 MPs voted in favour of the amendment to the Public Order Bill while 110 rejected it, a majority of 187. Two hundred and forty MPs did not vote at all. See Hansard HERE.
MPs were allowed a free vote by their parties on the amendment, which meant they did not face pressure from party leaders to vote a certain way. Furthermore, it also meant the amendment was certain to pass. Labour and Liberal Democrats MPs always vote virtually en masse for abortion, while the Conservatives are always split. Only Ulster’s DUP consistently vote pro-life.
The new clause added an ‘Offence of interference with access to or provision of abortion services.’ However, only this week the House of Lords substituted a different version of ‘Clause 9’, as it is known. See Hansard HERE.
Click HERE to sign our petition against ‘Buffer Zones’ ..
Click HERE for my video on abortion and ‘Buffer Zones’ .
‘Textual References’
The Bible says:
Prov 31:8 Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
It will be remiss of us, as the Public Order Bill proceeds through Parliament, not to challenge the idea of forbidding Christian witness in specific areas of the king’s realm. Christian Voice people love taking God’s message to the street. The Lord used us mightily in this way against the Corpus Christi play in St Andrews, the Sunday Mirror, the South Wales Echo and of course the theatre tour of Jerry Springer the Opera. We have confronted ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’. We have stood with parents at schools promoting LGBT propaganda. We regularly witness about creation outside the Natural History Museum.
Why should Christian Voice not be found praying or singing, holding up a Bible verse or preaching outside an abortion centre?
It is noteworthy that the Birmingham PSPO, while banning ‘text or images relating directly or indirectly to the termination of pregnancy’ says this ‘includes but is not limited to, imagery or textual references to abortion, baby, mum, foetus, soul, kill, hell, murder.’
’Formed thee from the womb’
It is an interesting selection. Nevertheless, one good word is missing. We see it in every one of these King James Bible verses:
Psalm 22:9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
Psalm 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
Eccl 11:5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
Isaiah 44:2 Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.
Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Galations 1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
And of course we remember Elizabeth’s exclamation when an unborn John the Baptist reacted to the presence of an embryonic Lord Jesus:
Luke 1:44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy:
Read and Pray
Surely none of those relates ‘directly or indirectly to the termination of pregnancy’, does it? We shall see. And what about these two:
READ also: Deut 27:25; Psalm 106:37-38.
PRAY: Thank God for Isabel Vaughan-Spruce. Thank him also that there were found men and women to stand for life in the House of Commons. Ask him why so few.
Pray the House of Lords will overturn the new clause in the Public Order Bill. Above all, pray for an end to abortion in our land. Pray for an MP to introduce a Texas-style ‘‘Heartbeat’ law. Pray for your MP!
Please also pray for wisdom as we consider what sort of witness will best challenge the idea of buffer zones / PSPO’s next week!
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