Isabel Vaughan-Spruce pleads not guilty to buffer-zone charges over silent prayer in Birmingham

Right · 2Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a charity volunteer and co-director of March for Life UK, has pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching an abortion-facility buffer zone in Birmingham by praying silently. 1 2 Right · 1GB News reports she was first charged in December 2025 and that a preliminary hearing took place at Birmingham Magistrates' Court; it says she was the first person charged under the UK's buffer-zone legislation, which came into force in October 2024. 1 Right · 1The law bars people from influencing anyone's decision to access, provide or facilitate abortion services within 150m of abortion facilities. 1

Right · 1During a three-day hearing, Judge Tan Ikram said the original charge was "not properly drafted" and that the legislation requires an "act" within the buffer zone. On the second day he allowed the prosecution to bring five fresh charges, one for each occasion she prayed silently in the zone, and she pleaded not guilty to all five. 1 Right · 1The judge said: "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." 1 Right · 1Her legal team argues she has been "singled out", that the law was not intended to criminalise such conduct, and that it cannot interfere with the absolute right to freedom of thought and religious belief; they say her presence would not have been an offence had her pro-life beliefs not been known. 1

Right · 2Her lawyer Jeremiah Igunnubole of Alliance Defending Freedom called the prosecution "thought policing" and the first of its kind in Britain, and told Fox News Digital that standing in the buffer zone is not itself a crime, so the question is what she was charged for. 1 2 Right · 2Vaughan-Spruce says she was earlier vindicated after two wrongful arrests and received a financial settlement, which Fox News puts at £13,000 from police; she told Fox News Digital the climate feels "Orwellian" and that people fear praying in public. 1 2 Right · 1Fox News said the Home Office and the Crown Prosecution Service declined to comment because the case is pending. Neither report includes a prosecution or government account of the charges. 2

Right · 2The reports differ on timing: GB News, published 9 October, presents the plea to the five fresh charges as current, while Fox News, published 12 October, says she pleaded not guilty in January and that the case is heading toward trial. 1 2