Isabel Vaughan-Spruce has been awarded £13,000 (or almost $17,000) in a claim filed against British police who arrested her repeatedly for praying silently near an abortion facility.
In late 2022, Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for the first time when police spotted her standing silently near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham. Though she was holding no sign and didn’t speak to anyone, police still approached her and interrogated her about praying silently. She was arrested, and though she was granted bail, the conditions imposed upon her were extreme violations of her rights; this included barring her from speaking to a Catholic priest involved in pro-life work, and engaging in public prayer, even outside of the buffer zones surrounding abortion facilities.
Those conditions were eventually dropped, and the charges against her were dropped as well following a hearing at the Birmingham Magistrates’ Court in which she was found innocent… only for Vaughan-Spruce to be arrested again just a few months later, in February of 2023, again for praying silently. Just prior to this second arrest, the United Kingdom’s parliament approved legislation banning prayer outside every single abortion facility in the country. For her second arrest, Vaughan-Spruce was surrounded by six officers, who outright told her that praying was a punishable offense. “But you’ve said you’re engaging in prayer, which is the offense,” one officer said.
“Silent prayer,” Vaughan-Spruce responded, to which the officer replied, “No, but you were still engaging in prayer. It is an offense.”
READ: Scotland lawmakers approve ‘most extreme abortion buffer zone law in the world’
“Only three weeks ago, it was made clear by the court that my silent prayers were not a crime,” she said in a press release shortly after her second arrest. “And yet, again, I have been arrested and treated as a criminal for having the exact same thoughts in my head, in the same location. The ambiguity of laws that limit free expression and thought – even in peaceful, consensual conversation or in silent, internal prayer – leads to abject confusion, to the detriment of important fundamental rights. Nobody should be criminalised for their thoughts.”
She was then arrested for a third time in October of 2023 for praying silently near an abortion facility.
Vaughan-Spruce was then victorious after filing a claim against West Midlands Police for two wrongful arrests and false imprisonments, as well as assault and battery in relation to an intrusive search, and a breach of her human rights.
“Silent prayer is not a crime. Nobody should be arrested merely for the thoughts they have in their heads – yet this happened to me twice at the hands of the West Midlands Police, who explicitly told me that ‘prayer is an offence,'” Vaughan-Spruce said in a statement. “There is no place for Orwell’s Thought Police in 21st-century Britain, and thanks to legal support I received from ADF UK, I’m delighted that the settlement that I have received today acknowledges that. Yet despite this victory, I am deeply concerned that this violation could be repeated at the hands of other police forces. Our culture is shifting towards a clampdown on viewpoint diversity, with Christian thought and prayer increasingly under threat of censorship.”
Ministers in Parliament are allegedly planning to review the buffer zone law and issue clearer guidance to police to prevent these kinds of arrests — though Lord David Frost, a former MP, said there is still much to be concerned about.
“[I]f a recent report is correct that the Government is considering formally criminalising silent prayer outside abortion centres, then there will be further such cases, and then not just freedom of speech but freedom of thought will be under threat. It is hard to imagine a more absurd and dangerous situation,” Frost said. “It would be much better to stick to the sensible approach in the previous Home Secretary’s draft guidance, which proposed a much better balance between the various competing rights and interests. If the Government scraps it, then it will be clear to all that its commitment to civil liberties and fundamental freedoms is paper thin.”
