U.K. police have paid a Christian pro-life activist 13,000 pounds (about $16,800) in compensation after they arrested her twice for praying silently near an abortion clinic in Birmingham, England.
Authorities first arrested Isabel Vaughan-Spruce in December 2022 for her actions within a so-called "buffer zone" outside the clinic. The area, officially known as a public space protection order (PSPO), prohibits "protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users," and showing "approval or disapproval with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means," which authorities said includes silent prayer.
According to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) UK, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, Vaughan-Spruce sought the claim against police for "two wrongful arrests and false imprisonments, assault and battery in relation to an intrusive search of her person, and for a breach of her human rights both in respect to the arrests and to the onerous bail conditions imposed on her."
Vaughan-Spruce was acquitted of all charges in February 2023, but arrested a few weeks later for the same activity. A video of the incident shows police saying, "You've said you're engaging in prayer, which is the offense."
Those charges were later dropped after intervention by the then-Home Secretary, who told police that silent prayer is "not unlawful."
In a statement released by ADF UK, Vaughan-Spruce said, "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 offense.'"
The payout comes as the U.K.'s new leftist Labour government is reportedly considering legislation that would criminalize silent prayer outside abortion facilities.
Current guidance states, "Silent prayer, being the engagement of the mind and thought in prayer towards God, is protected as an absolute right under the Human Rights Act 1998 and should not, on its own, be considered to be an offense under any circumstances."