Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Catholic pro-life activist from Worcestershire, has pleaded not guilty to five charges under England and Wales’ abortion buffer-zone law, accusations built around silent prayer near a clinic in Birmingham.
She denied the charges in Birmingham Magistrates’ Court during a preliminary hearing on Wednesday after first being charged in December 2025. She is the first person charged under the national rules, which took effect in October 2024.
The law bars activity intended to influence, or reckless as to whether it might influence, a person’s decision to “access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services” within 150 meters of an abortion facility.
The alleged breaches occurred on five days between June and November 2025 outside a facility in the Kings Norton area and that prosecutors succeeded in having the incidents treated as five separate offences rather than one.
The defence argue that continuing with the prosecution would be an abuse of process. Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram is expected to decide next month whether the case goes to trial; if it does, prosecutors have said a hearing before January is unlikely.
On the first day of the three-day abuse of process hearing, Ikram noted that the legislation requires an “act” to be committed within the buffer zone, indicating that the current charge was “not properly drafted” and that “the prosecution bear the burden to make it clear.”
He also told the court, “This case is not about abortion rights, it is about a criminal offence which Parliament has defined … Courts are not here to pass judgement on people’s views.”
On the second day, he allowed five fresh charges, “one for each occasion she prayed silently within the ‘buffer zone.’”
According to a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Ikram also affirmed that “standing is not a crime … It doesn’t matter how many times you do it, mere presence is not enough.” He went on to instruct that the focus of the case must be on whether or not Vaughan-Spruce had the “requisite intent to influence or harass others,” for which she pleaded “not guilty” to all five new charges.
Vaughan-Spruce’s defense team argued that she has been “singled out,” pointing out that if her pro-life convictions were not already known, “her presence within the ‘buffer zone’ would not have been considered an offence.” Further, they charge, Parliament did not intend the law to “criminalise conduct of this kind” or to override the “absolute rights to freedom of thought and to hold a particular religious belief.”
