This is the moment when three uniformed police officers arrest a Catholic woman for standing silently outside an abortion clinic.
They are seen approaching Isabel Vaughan-Spruce close to the British Pregnancy Advisory Services Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham, which in September was granted a “buffer” zone by the local authority to prevent people praying outside and offering counselling to pregnant women.
A male officer asks Ms Vaughan-Spruce, 45, what she is “here for today” and she replies: “Physically, I’m just standing here.”
He then asks her if she is part of a protest and she replies: “No, I am not protesting.”
The police officer asks her directly: “Are you praying?”
She answers: “I might be praying in my head, but not out loud.”
At that point the police officer initiates the arrest, first by asking Ms Vaughan-Spruce to come with the three officers voluntarily to a police station.
When she declines, he arrests her and a woman police officer searches her in the street and takes her mobile telephone, keys and other possessions before she is led to a waiting police car and driven away.
The pro-life pregnancy counsellor from Malvern, Worcestershire, was later charged with four counts of failing to comply with a Public Space Protection Order and was bailed to appear in Birmingham Magistrates Court on February 2.
The bail conditions include a requirement that Ms Vaughan Spruce, the director of the UK March for Life, desists from taking part in public prayer even beyond the limits of the exclusion zone.
The video of the arrest was released by ADF International, the legal organisation which is supporting Ms Vaughan-Spruce, and it quickly went viral, being viewed six million times in under 24 hours.
The Revd Calvin Robinson, an Free Church of England clergyman and GB News TV presenter, called the arrest “terrifying”, adding: “Regardless of your position on abortion, this is wrong.”
Winston Marshall, former Mumford & Sons musician and Spectator Podcast host said: “Arrested for praying, in her head. In England. In 2022.”
Broadcaster Darren Grimes called the arrest “the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen the police do” while the acclaimed author Sohrab Amari tweeted, “OY YOU GO’ A LICENSE TO PRAY IN YOUR ’EAD MA’AM?”.
Lord Pearson has challenged the Government following the arrest of Ms Vaughan-Spruce, asking in Parliament “what assessment they have made of the arrest of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce by police in Birmingham in December; and what steps they intend to take to ensure that the rights of (1) freedom of religion, and (2) freedom of thought, are upheld”.
Ms Vaughan-Spruce said: “It’s abhorrently wrong that I was arrested, brought into cells, searched and humiliated by police simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind.
“Censorship zone legislation purports to ban harassment, which is already illegal and obviously justifiable as nobody should be subject to harassment.
“But what I did was the furthest thing from harmful – I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, inside the privacy of my own mind.
“Nobody should be criminalised for thinking, for praying, in a public space in the UK.”
She added: “I have devoted much of my life to supporting women in crisis pregnancies with everything that they need to make an empowered choice for motherhood.
“I am also involved in supporting women who have had abortions and are struggling with the consequences of it.
“I’ve grown close to many of the women I’ve been able to support over the years, and it breaks my heart to know that so many more go through this every day.
“My faith is a central part of who I am, so sometimes I’ll stand or walk near an abortion facility and pray about this issue.
“This is something I’ve done pretty much every week for around the last 20 years of my life. I pray for my friends who have experienced abortion, and for the women who are thinking about going through it themselves.”
The exclusion zone was introduced by Birmingham City Council on September 7 to prohibit anyone “engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval” of abortion in proximity to the clinic, including through “verbal or written means, prayer or counselling”.
The council argued that the measure was necessary to ensure “people visiting and working there have clear access without fear of confrontation”.
A West Midlands Police spokesperson confirmed that Ms Vaughan-Spruce was arrested on December 6 and subsequently charged on December 15 with violating the PSPO.
Her prosecution was severely criticised by Jeremiah Igunnubole, counsel for ADF UK, the legal organisation which is supporting Ms Vaughan-Spruce, as an attack on freedom and human rights.
He said: “Isabel’s experience should be deeply concerning to all those who believe that our hard-fought for fundamental rights are worth protecting.
“It is truly astonishing that the law has granted local authorities such wide and unaccountable discretion that now even wrong thoughts can lead to a humiliating arrest and a criminal charge.”
He continued: “A mature democracy should be able to differentiate between criminal conduct and peaceful exercise of constitutionally protected rights.
“Isabel, a woman of good character, and who has tirelessly served her community by providing charitable assistance to vulnerable women and children, has been treated no better than a violent criminal.”
He added: “The recent increase in buffer zone legislation and orders is a watershed moment in our country. We must now ask ourselves whether we are a genuinely democratic nation committed to protecting the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of speech.
“The recent proliferation of censorship zones suggest that we are now mindlessly sleepwalking into a society that accepts, normalises and even promotes the ‘tyranny of the majority’.”
Her arrest follows an incident in Bournemouth where a woman was prevented from praying publicly when she was outside the buffer zone of an abortion clinic there.
Last year, a grandmother from Liverpool successfully appealed against her conviction and fine for praying silently near an abortion facility on a walk during lockdown.
In Westminster, parliamentarians are considering legislation to introduce censorship zones in England and Wales.
Clause 9 of the Public Order Bill, currently under parliamentary debate, would prohibit pro-life volunteers from “influencing”, “advising”, “persuading”, “informing”, “occupying space” or even “expressing opinion” within the vicinity of an abortion facility.
Those who breach the rules could face up to two years in prison.
Yet a 2018 government review into the work of pro-life volunteers outside of abortion facilities found that instances of harassment are rare, and police already have powers to prosecute individuals engaging in such activities.
The most common activities of pro-life groups were found to be quiet or silent prayer, or offering leaflets about charitable support available to women who would like to consider alternative options to abortion.
The censorious provisions of the parliamentary bill drew substantive criticism from members of the House of Lords, including Liberal Democrat peer Lord Beith, who deemed the clause “the most profound restriction on free speech I have ever seen in any UK legislation”.
Lord Farmer called the clause “fundamentally flawed”, and asked: “When one walks past, one sees that vigils are often small groups of harmless, mainly female, pensioners. Why should they be banned and silenced?”
The Supreme Court decided however that buffer zones proposed around clinics in Northern Ireland did not violate the right to free expression upheld by European Convention on Human Rights.
The ruling was denounced by the Catholic bishops of Ireland, Scotland and England and Wales because of ramifications of buffer zones, usually of about 150 metres, being introduced anywhere.
Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster, Lead Bishop for Life Issues in England and Wales, said the ruling raised important questions about the state’s powers in relation to the individual in a free society.
He said buffer zones were “disproportionate and unnecessary” and represented an attack on the religious liberty which was “essential for the flourishing and the realisation of the dignity of every human person, and is the foundational freedom of any free and democratic society”.
Scotland’s bishop said that the ruling simply failed “to protect basic freedoms of expression and freedom of assembly”.
They noted plans to introduce a national buffer zones law in Scotland were progressing and said that they would have “a chilling effect on freedom of speech and assembly in a country which has long valued both”.