Woman in BDSM relationship with married couple cleared of illegal abortion
A woman who was in a BDSM relationship with a married couple has been cleared of illegally aborting her baby.
Nicola Packer, 45, broke down in tears after a jury acquitted her of 'unlawfully administering to herself a poison or other noxious thing' with the 'intent to procure a miscarriage'.
The not-guilty verdict prompted calls for a change in the law.
Ms Packer's trial at Isleworth Crown Court heard that she took abortion medicine at home in November 2020 and later brought the foetus to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in a backpack.
She took prescribed medications mifepristone and misoprostol when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, jurors were told.
The legal limit for taking medication at home for an abortion is 10 weeks.
Prosecutors alleged that Ms Packer knew she had been pregnant for more than 10 weeks, which she denied.
Ms Packer had been in a BDSM relationship with a husband and wife, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, the trial was told.
All three had been in the BDSM 'scene' and lived together periodically from when the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, the court heard.
Ms Packer was supported by five people in the public gallery, with some hugging each other after the verdict was read to the court.
Giving evidence during her trial, Ms Packer spoke of her 'shock' and 'surprise' at being pregnant. She later broke down in tears as she told the jury of nine women and three men: 'If I had known I was that far along, I wouldn't have done it.
'I wouldn't have put the baby or myself through it.'
The outer limit for abortions in the UK is normally 24 weeks, though there are grounds where there are no limits throughout the 40-week gestation period.
Ms Packer did not discover she was pregnant until she took a test on Nov 2, 2020, the court heard.
She took abortion medication on Nov 6 and went to hospital the following day, having passed a foetus into the toilet, her trial was told.
The jury heard Ms Packer spent the night of Nov 7 in hospital and was arrested by police the next day.
Jurors deliberated for more than six hours to reach the unanimous verdict.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said the trial showed 'just how outdated and harmful' current abortion law is as they backed calls for reform.
An amendment could be published next week to the Crime and Policing Bill – by a group led by Labour MP Stella Creasy – to not only decriminalise abortion but to 'lock in' the right to terminate a pregnancy and protect those who help them.
Ms Creasy said the law must be changed so that 'the right to choose is a human right', ensuring no repeat of 'such awful cases and victimisation of vulnerable women again'.
Fellow Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who went to the trial to lend her support, branded it 'completely unacceptable' that Ms Packer was 'forced to endure the indignity and turmoil of a trial'.
She said: 'Nicola's experience, in her own words, includes being taken from her hospital bed to a police cell, denied timely access to essential medical care, and spending every penny she had on lawyers defending her case.
'This is utterly deplorable, and it is not justice. I do not see how this law can be defended any longer.'
After the verdict was delivered, Judge Martin Edmunds KC thanked jurors for their attention in the case and said Ms Packer was formally discharged.
'This was an old case, relating to events during 2020, in the Covid pandemic,' Judge Edmunds said.
'It is the prosecution, the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] who make decisions about whether to pursue criminal cases. They do so through guidelines which they have to apply... one of which is the public interest.'
The Crown Prosecution Service said that its prosecutors are cautious when considering 'traumatic cases' like the trial of Nicola Packer.
A CPS spokesman said: 'Our prosecutors exercise the greatest care when considering complex and traumatic cases such as this one.
'The role of the Crown Prosecution Service in this case was not to decide whether Nicola Packer's actions were right or wrong; but to make a factual judgement about whether she knew she was beyond the legal limit when she procured an abortion.
'Prosecutors considered there was enough evidence to bring this case for a court to decide, and we respect the jury's decision.'
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Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the US, charged with human smuggling as attorneys vow ongoing fight
To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March. The fight became a political flashpoint in the administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement. Now it returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welken in a phone interview Saturday President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. 'The Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that's fine,' he said. 'There are two ways you could have done it, and they decided to do it that way.' Trump said it should 'be a very easy case.' In announcing Abrego Garcia's return Attorney General Pam Bondi called him 'a smuggler of humans and children and women' in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won't believe the 'preposterous' allegations. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue. 'As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,' the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. 'The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.' Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork. The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. 'Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from 'Pupuseria Cecilia,'' his lawyers wrote. A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for 'rent money' and threatened to kill his brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren't paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S. Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them. The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work. About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George's County, just outside Washington. In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George's County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or 'any new intelligence' on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13. Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case. The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail. In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia's asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a 'well-founded fear' of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal. Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice. In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records. Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out 'privately as a family, including by going to counseling.' 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,' she stated. She added that 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him.' In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated. Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued. Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge's order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as 'an administrative error' but insisted he was in MS-13. His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff. The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now. A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member's mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welker in a telephone interview President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. Abrego Garcia's attorney disagreed. 'There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,' attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Karoline Leavitt rips Van Hollen, media for portrayal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called out Democrats and the media for defending illegal immigrant and suspected MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia Friday. Abrego Garcia, who was deported in March to an El Salvador mega prison, was returned to the U.S. Friday to answer federal charges for human smuggling and conspiracy. 'The Justice Department's Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools,' Leavitt said in a statement to Fox News. 'Abrego Garcia was never an innocent 'Maryland Man'– Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable,' Leavitt added. She also called out Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador in April 'to show solidarity' with Abrego Garcia. 'Abrego Garcia will now return to the United States to answer for his crimes and meet the full force of American justice,' Leavitt said. 'The Democrat lawmakers, namely Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen, and every single so-called 'journalist' who defended this illegal criminal abuser must immediately apologize to Garcia's victims. The Trump Administration will continue to hold criminals accountable to the fullest extent of the law.' 4 White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called out Democrats and the media for defending suspected MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Ron Sachs/CNP / 4 Abrego Garcia was deported in March to an El Salvador mega prison and returned to the U.S. on Friday to answer federal charges for human smuggling and conspiracy. AP Abrego Garcia previously lived in Maryland before the administration deported him to the Central American country's mega prison. 4 Senator Chris Van Hollen meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia at a hotel in San Salvador, El Salvador, on April 17. x account of senator Van Hollen/AFP via Getty Images 4 'The Democrat lawmakers, namely Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen, and every single so-called 'journalist' who defended this illegal criminal abuser must immediately apologize to Garcia's victims,' Leavitt said. According to Abrego Garcia's indictment, he played a 'significant role' in a human smuggling ring operating for nearly a decade, and Bondi described him as a full-time smuggler who made more than 100 trips, transporting women, children and MS-13 gang-affiliated persons throughout the United States. Fox News Digital obtained Tennessee Highway Patrol bodycam footage from a 2022 traffic stop where troopers pulled over Abrego Garcia for speeding. Inside his vehicle were eight other men, raising immediate suspicions. 'He's hauling these people for money,' one trooper said. Law enforcement found $1,400 in cash and flagged Abrego Garcia in the National Crime Information Center, which returned a gang/terrorism alert. ICE was called, but never responded. Despite Abrego Garcia's alleged illegal activity, various media outlets continued to refer to him as a 'Maryland man' Friday, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. Fox News contributor Guy Benson shared a screenshot of their Breaking News alerts using the phrase. Axios and USA TODAY referred to him as a 'Maryland man' or 'Maryland father' on social media.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in the US, charged with human smuggling as attorneys vow ongoing fight
To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March. The fight that became a political flashpoint in the administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement now returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Abrego Garcia 'a smuggler of humans and children and women' in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won't believe the 'preposterous' allegations. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue. 'As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all," the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. "The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.' Gang threats in El Salvador Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork. The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. 'Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from 'Pupuseria Cecilia,'' his lawyers wrote. A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for 'rent money' and threatened to kill his brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren't paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S. Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them. The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. Life in the U.S. Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work. About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George's County, just outside Washington. In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George's County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or 'any new intelligence' on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13. Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case. The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail. In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia's asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a 'well-founded fear' of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal. Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice. In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records. Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out 'privately as a family, including by going to counseling.' 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,' she stated. She added that 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him." A traffic stop in Tennessee In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated. Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued. Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage. Mistaken deportation and new charges Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge's order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as 'an administrative error' but insisted he was in MS-13. His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff. The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now. A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member's mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Abrego Garcia's attorney disagreed. "There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,' attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
