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The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Utterly traumatised': anger at ordeal of UK woman accused of illegal abortion
When Nicola Packer took a pregnancy test in November 2020, as the country was in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, she did not even believe she was pregnant. Aged 41 at the time, she thought it more likely that she was perimenopausal, but had been feeling under the weather and when her friend – with whom the pregnancy had been conceived – suggested she took a test, she only did so to 'prove him wrong'. When the test, bought from a chemist around the corner, came back positive, she was 'shocked', but was never in any doubt about what to do. She had never wanted children, and immediately sought a termination. Under emergency provisions introduced during the pandemic – which were later made permanent – abortion pills could be dispatched by post, following a remote consultation, in pregnancies up to 10 weeks' gestation. She took the pills, thinking, as her defence barrister, Fiona Horlick KC, told Isleworth crown court, 'that she would only see blood clots to look into the toilet bowl', but to her shock, hours later, she delivered 'a small but fully formed baby'. This in itself was a traumatic event for Packer, but it would pale in comparison to what followed. She attended A&E at Charing Cross hospital, bleeding and in shock. Staff told her she was in the wrong hospital and to go to Chelsea and Westminster instead, but did not provide an ambulance and left her to make her own way there. She had brought the foetus with her, but did not immediately tell staff that she had taken abortion medication, because she feared it would affect the care she received. When she later admitted that she had taken the pills, informing a midwife who had told Packer 'she was there to care for her, that her safety was their priority and that whatever happened they were there to support her', the police were called in. Uniformed officers arrived at the hospital, and Packer, still recovering from surgery after the birth, was arrested. She was taken into custody and her computers and phone were seized. It was the start of an ordeal that would stretch for four and a half years, culminating in her standing in the dock, giving evidence as part of her two-week trial. For periods of the trial Packer was able to stand with composure and a sense of quiet pride. Often, however, this was stripped away under a barrage of deeply personal questioning, as the prosecution asked her to relive one of the worst days of her life, scrutinising every detail she said she could not recall. Though she seemed steady and stoic at times, she would sometimes give way to tears. When she gave evidence, Packer was joined in court by a small group of friends, who held her hand as she walked into the courtroom and escorted her out whenever she left, be it at the end of the day, or to take a break from her interrogation. At one point, the presiding judge was forced to send the jury away and reprimand Packer's support group for tutting too loudly and rolling their eyes during a particularly intense, and in their eyes inappropriate, line of questioning. As the trial came to a close, addressing the jury of three men and nine women for the final time, Horlick said her client was still 'utterly traumatised'. 'The facts of this case are a tragedy but they are not a crime,' she said. While the prosecution may be over, Packer, now 45, will be irreparably changed by the ordeal. The most private details of her life were aired in public – her medical history including past terminations, her sexual preferences, a tragic baby loss in her family, and even intimate photographs of her – shown by the defence to the jury to prove that she did not look pregnant. In the coming days, there will be questions asked of the Crown Prosecution Service, which brought the case to trial despite Judge Edmunds KC urging the CPS to review whether there was a public interest in trying the case 'four and a half years after events'. At a pre-trial hearing, Edmunds, the recorder of Kensington who presided over the case, said there was a 'heavy burden' on the prosecution, particularly given backlogs in the courts system. Jonathan Lord, an NHS consultant gynaecologist and the clinician in charge of Packer's care while working at MSI Reproductive Choices, said: 'This was a vindictive and brutal prosecution in which the CPS weaponised victim-shaming. Wholly unnecessary details of Nicola's relationships and sex life were prominent in the prosecution's opening statement, made in the full knowledge they would be widely reported in the press. 'The police played several recordings of her confidential medical consultations in open court. 'CCTV footage was shown of her arriving at A&E in considerable distress. Packer had to show the court intimate photographs of herself in her defence, all while sat in a packed courtroom as the jury viewed the images. No woman should ever have to endure institutionalised public shaming and humiliation, let alone in 2025 in England.' The case has furthered calls for a change in the law, which could come as soon as this summer, with two backbench Labour MPs set to lay amendments to the criminal justice bill, seeking to decriminalise abortion. One of the MPs, Tonia Antoniazzi, who spent a day in court during Packer's trial, said: 'It must be an immense relief for Nicola to have avoided conviction, but it is completely unacceptable that she was forced to endure the indignity and turmoil of a trial. Having met Nicola at the crown court recently, I have seen firsthand the devastating impact that this cruel and unnecessary investigation has had on her life over the last four and a half years. 'The true injustice here is the years of her life stolen by a law written decades before women had the vote, for a 'crime' which doesn't even apply in two nations of the United Kingdom. '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.' Lord said: 'Every agency Nicola needed turned against her. In this, as in other cases, the teams charged with treating, protecting and safeguarding vulnerable women and girls have done the most harm, breaking confidentiality and treating victims as criminals. 'The issue is not simply that Nicola had the misfortune of encountering some callous organisations or individuals, but that our current abortion laws directed and encouraged the actions taken against her. 'The law is causing life-changing harm to the women involved, and in some cases their children too. 'What's happening, the horrific way the women and their children are being treated – including those with premature labours and natural later pregnancy losses – is a national scandal.'
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- The Guardian
UK woman who took pills during lockdown cleared of illegal abortion
A woman has been cleared of illegally terminating a pregnancy, after taking abortion pills during lockdown. Nicola Packer, 45, took the pills at home in November 2020. She had been prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol after a remote consultation. She later delivered a foetus, which the court heard was estimated to be around 26 weeks in gestation, which she brought with her to Chelsea and Westminster hospital, Isleworth crown court heard. She was arrested in hospital, later charged with 'unlawfully administering to herself a poison or other noxious thing' with the 'intent to procure a miscarriage'. Packer, then 41, had been prescribed the medication under emergency pandemic legislation – later made permanent – that allows for pills to be dispatched by post after a remote consultation in pregnancies up to 10 weeks. The prosecution had alleged that she believed she was more than 10 weeks pregnant at the time she took the pills. But she denied the charges, and was found not guilty by the jury of nine women and three men, after the two-week trial. 'The facts of this case are a tragedy but they are not a crime and Ms Packer is not guilty of this offence,' Fiona Horlick KC, defending Packer, said in her closing speech on Tuesday. 'It is hard to imagine how traumatically awful it must have been for Ms Packer thinking that she would only see blood clots to look into the toilet bowl and see a small but fully formed baby,' she told the jury. 'Four and a half years later you can see how she is still utterly traumatised by that.'
The Independent
06-05-2025
- The Independent
Woman accused of having illegal abortion ‘still utterly traumatised' by events
A woman accused of having an illegal abortion is 'still utterly traumatised' by her experience, her barrister has said as she told jurors the facts of her client's case 'are a tragedy but they are not a crime'. Nicola Packer, 45, took abortion medicine at home in November 2020 and later brought the foetus to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Isleworth Crown Court has heard. She is charged with 'unlawfully administering to herself a poison or other noxious thing' with the 'intent to procure a miscarriage'. Packer, then 41 years old, took prescribed medications mifepristone and misoprostol when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, jurors have heard. The legal limit for at-home abortions is 10 weeks. Packer denies knowing she was more than 10 weeks pregnant, tearfully telling the jury during her evidence that she would not have taken the medication if she had known how far along she was. Fiona Horlick KC, defending, said in her closing speech on Tuesday: 'The facts of this case are a tragedy but they are not a crime and Ms Packer is not guilty of this offence. 'Remember what she said, she said: 'I would never have put the baby or myself through it if I had known'.' Ms Horlick said Packer rang the abortion services after finding out she was pregnant 'to her shock', and that after a discussion with them believed she was under 10 weeks pregnant and could take the medicine. 'It is hard to imagine how traumatically awful it must have been for Ms Packer thinking that she would only see blood clots to look into the toilet bowl to see a small but fully formed baby,' Ms Horlick continued. 'Four-and-a-half years later you can see how she is still utterly traumatised by that.' Ms Horlick told jurors Packer 'wanted to do the right thing for the baby'. 'She did not dump its body in a rubbish bin,' the barrister said. ' People do do that. 'She investigated funeral homes. She took the baby to hospital with her. 'Are those the actions of somebody who knowingly took medication not believing she was under 10 weeks pregnant?' The court heard Packer told staff she had no idea she was 'so pregnant', and was observed as being 'in shock'. 'This is a scared, traumatised woman who had been through the worst experience of her life and needed help,' Ms Horlick said. The barrister called her client a 'genuine, honest person' and insisted 'all of the evidence in this case points to her innocence'. The prosecution alleges that Packer knew she had been pregnant for more than 10 weeks. 'The rights and wrongs of abortion are of absolutely no concern in this trial,' prosecutor Alexandra Felix KC said in her closing speech earlier on Tuesday. 'Why Nicola Packer chose to have an abortion is no concern of anybody else's – that is her individual choice which she is entitled to have.' 'What the prosecution says she did … she realised that she was not in the early stages of pregnancy or less than 10 weeks,' Ms Felix said. 'After she knew she was pregnant she must have started looking back and thinking to herself when could this have happened.' Ms Felix said Packer is 'willing to tell lies' and that her claim to the hospital that she had had a miscarriage was a 'charade'. Ms Horlick claimed the prosecution speech was 'full of speculation and distortions of the evidence', telling the jury: 'Let us just come down to earth and deal with reality.' The typical full gestation term is 40 weeks and the outer limit for abortions in the UK is 24 weeks. The trial continues on Wednesday.
