Labour prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has launched an assault on free speech, and is planning also to go after ‘thought crime.’
So campaigners were pleased on Monday morning to see this fundamental freedom come out on top, at least in one case.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a Christian charity volunteer, was arrested twice (in 2022 and 2023) for praying silently outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham—both times while the Conservative Party was in office. On the second occasion, Vaughan-Spruce was surrounded by police officers, with one telling her:
You’ve said you’re engaging in prayer, which is the offence.
Campaigners said she was searched, including through her hair, and later charged and prosecuted, even though she hadn’t expressed any opinion.
Both cases have since been dropped, and reports this morning, on August 19th, reveal that Vaughan-Spruce has received a £13,000 (€15,270) payout and an apology from West Midlands Police.
The New Culture Forum has hailed this as “a rare victory for common sense.”
Conservative peer Lord Frost also said “it is incredible that people have been arrested for thought crime in modern Britain,” and noted that it is likely “there will be further such cases, and then not just freedom of speech but freedom of thought will be under threat.”
Indeed, it is likely that the new Labour government will overwrite draft guidelines telling police that silent prayer—as well as “consensual” communication—should be allowed outside abortion clinics.
Vaughan-Spruce’s legal case was supported by ADF UK. The legal advocacy group celebrated her “victory against UK censorship.”
