A retired Baptist pastor has gone on trial accused of conducting an illegal protest inside the limits of a “safe access zone”.
It is the prosecution case that Clive Johnston either intended to influence, or was reckless as to whether any “protected person” attending the Causeway Hospital abortion services, would be influenced.
The 77-year-old maintained however, that although he had objections to the laws which extended abortion services to NI, he was not protesting outside the hospital on July 7 last year but rather giving a sermon and spreading the Gospel.
He told Coleraine Magistrates’ Court if it has come to a stage where spreading the “light of Jesus” is not allowed and is now illegal, “then in our country we have come to a very sad position”