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6 days ago
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When Nicola Packer took a gestation trial successful November 2020, arsenic the state was successful lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, she did not adjacent judge she was pregnant.
Aged 41 astatine the time, she thought it much apt that she was perimenopausal, but had been feeling nether the upwind and erstwhile her person – with whom the gestation had been conceived – suggested she took a test, she lone did truthful to “prove him wrong”.
When the test, bought from a chemist astir the corner, came backmost positive, she was “shocked”, but was ne'er successful immoderate uncertainty astir what to do. She had ne'er wanted children, and instantly sought a termination.
Under exigency provisions introduced during the pandemic – which were aboriginal made imperishable – termination pills could beryllium dispatched by post, pursuing a distant consultation, successful pregnancies up to 10 weeks’ gestation.
She took the pills, thinking, arsenic her defence barrister, Fiona Horlick KC, told Isleworth crown court, “that she would lone spot humor clots to look into the toilet bowl”, but to her shock, hours later, she delivered “a tiny but afloat formed baby”.
This successful itself was a traumatic lawsuit for Packer, but it would airy successful examination to what followed. She attended A&E astatine Charing Cross hospital, bleeding and successful shock. Staff told her she was successful the incorrect infirmary and to spell to Chelsea and Westminster instead, but did not supply an ambulance and near her to marque her ain mode there.
She had brought the foetus with her, but did not instantly archer unit that she had taken termination medication, due to the fact that she feared it would impact the attraction she received.
When she aboriginal admitted that she had taken the pills, informing a midwife who had told Packer “she was determination to attraction for her, that her information was their precedence and that immoderate happened they were determination to enactment her”, the constabulary were called in.
Uniformed officers arrived astatine the hospital, and Packer, inactive recovering from country aft the birth, was arrested. She was taken into custody and her computers and telephone were seized.
It was the commencement of an ordeal that would agelong for 4 and a fractional years, culminating successful her lasting successful the dock, giving grounds arsenic portion of her two-week trial.
For periods of the proceedings Packer was capable to basal with composure and a consciousness of quiescent pride. Often, however, this was stripped distant nether a barrage of profoundly idiosyncratic questioning, arsenic the prosecution asked her to relive 1 of the worst days of her life, scrutinising each item she said she could not recall.
Though she seemed dependable and stoic astatine times, she would sometimes springiness mode to tears. When she gave evidence, Packer was joined successful tribunal by a tiny radical of friends, who held her manus arsenic she walked into the courtroom and escorted her retired whenever she left, beryllium it astatine the extremity of the day, oregon to instrumentality a interruption from her interrogation.
At 1 point, the presiding justice was forced to nonstop the assemblage distant and reprimand Packer’s enactment radical for tutting excessively loudly and rolling their eyes during a peculiarly intense, and successful their eyes inappropriate, enactment of questioning.
As the proceedings came to a close, addressing the assemblage of 3 men and 9 women for the last time, Horlick said her lawsuit was inactive “utterly traumatised”.
“The facts of this lawsuit are a calamity but they are not a crime,” she said.
While the prosecution whitethorn beryllium over, Packer, present 45, volition beryllium irreparably changed by the ordeal. The astir backstage details of her beingness were aired successful nationalist – her aesculapian past including past terminations, her intersexual preferences, a tragic babe nonaccomplishment successful her family, and adjacent intimate photographs of her – shown by the defence to the assemblage to beryllium that she did not look pregnant.
In the coming days, determination volition beryllium questions asked of the Crown Prosecution Service, which brought the lawsuit to proceedings contempt Judge Edmunds KC urging the CPS to reappraisal whether determination was a nationalist involvement successful trying the lawsuit “four and a fractional years aft events”.
At a pre-trial hearing, Edmunds, the recorder of Kensington who presided implicit the case, said determination was a “heavy burden” connected the prosecution, peculiarly fixed backlogs successful the courts system.
Jonathan Lord, an NHS advisor gynaecologist and the clinician successful complaint of Packer’s attraction portion moving astatine MSI Reproductive Choices, said: “This was a vindictive and brutal prosecution successful which the CPS weaponised victim-shaming. Wholly unnecessary details of Nicola’s relationships and enactment beingness were salient successful the prosecution’s opening statement, made successful the afloat cognition they would beryllium wide reported successful the press.
“The constabulary played respective recordings of her confidential aesculapian consultations successful unfastened court.
“CCTV footage was shown of her arriving astatine A&E successful sizeable distress. Packer had to amusement the tribunal intimate photographs of herself successful her defence, each portion sat successful a packed courtroom arsenic the assemblage viewed the images. No pistillate should ever person to endure institutionalised nationalist shaming and humiliation, fto unsocial successful 2025 successful England.”
The lawsuit has furthered calls for a alteration successful the law, which could travel arsenic soon arsenic this summer, with 2 backbench Labour MPs acceptable to laic amendments to the transgression justness bill, seeking to decriminalise abortion.
One of the MPs, Tonia Antoniazzi, who spent a time successful tribunal during Packer’s trial, said: “It indispensable beryllium an immense alleviation for Nicola to person avoided conviction, but it is wholly unacceptable that she was forced to endure the indignity and turmoil of a trial. Having met Nicola astatine the crown tribunal recently, I person seen firsthand the devastating interaction that this cruel and unnecessary probe has had connected her beingness implicit the past 4 and a fractional years.
“The existent injustice present is the years of her beingness stolen by a instrumentality written decades earlier women had the vote, for a ‘crime’ which doesn’t adjacent use successful 2 nations of the United Kingdom.
“Nicola’s experience, successful her ain words, includes being taken from her infirmary furniture to a constabulary cell, denied timely entree to indispensable aesculapian care, and spending each penny she had connected lawyers defending her case. This is utterly deplorable, and it is not justice. I bash not spot however this instrumentality tin beryllium defended immoderate longer.”
Lord said: “Every bureau Nicola needed turned against her. In this, arsenic successful different cases, the teams charged with treating, protecting and safeguarding susceptible women and girls person done the astir harm, breaking confidentiality and treating victims arsenic criminals.
“The contented is not simply that Nicola had the misfortune of encountering immoderate callous organisations oregon individuals, but that our existent termination laws directed and encouraged the actions taken against her.
“The instrumentality is causing life-changing harm to the women involved, and successful immoderate cases their children too.
“What’s happening, the horrific mode the women and their children are being treated – including those with premature labours and earthy aboriginal gestation losses – is simply a nationalist scandal.”
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