Police Pay Woman $17000 Settlement After Arresting Her (Twice) For Silently Praying Near Abortion Clinic
A Christian woman who was arrested twice by local law enforcement for praying silently outside a closed abortion clinic, in defiance of a ‘buffer zone’ created for the murder mill, has received £13,000 ($17,00USD) in compensation West Midlands Police.
Last year we reported that after a six-month-long investigation, police dropped all charges against March For Life UK Director Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who they arrested late last year and charged with “protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users” for her silent prayers. Following her arrest she sued the department and won her case. According to Christian Today:
The force settled with Isabel Vaughan-Spruce after she claimed wrongful arrests, false imprisonments, assault and battery in relation to the search of her person by officers, a breach of her human rights, and bail conditions branded “onerous” by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF UK) which supported her case.
Much like Canada has intolerably strict buffer zones around all abortion clinics that make it illegal to protest within 300 feet, punishing participants with a year of jail time for a first-time offense, some British buffer zones make it illegal to “harass” or “intimate” anyone within 450 feet of the building, which they considered the silent prayer to be.
Furthermore, the UK’s Home Office, a ministerial department tasked with immigration, security, and law and order, is mulling legislation that would ban silent prayer around these buffer zones, ensuring that future believers doing likewise may not be so fortunate.
Commenting on the settlement, Vaughan-Spruce was insistent:
“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.”
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