Abortion buffer zones: Stephen Green, 72, vows to go to jail rather than pay fine after holding bible verse up in Ealing buffer zone

Stephen Green held a sign with a verse from the bible inside a zone covered by a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) in Ealing last year.

The PSPO, enacted by Ealing Council in April 2018 outside the MSI Reproductive Choices Clinic in Mattock Lane, was the first so-called buffer zone surrounding an abortion clinic to be introduced in the UK.

In October the PSNI apparently made their first arrest in relation to NI’s new buffer zones, when they arrested a woman praying with a rosary outside Causeway Coast Hospital.

Green, 72 of Carmarthen, Dyfed in Wales, held what was described in court as a “large sign” containing the psalm text: “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.”

He had pleaded not guilty to breaching the order and proclaimed his right to freedom of speech.

But he was convicted at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, with District Judge Kathryn Verghis saying he had “pointedly and intentionally” included the words “in my mother’s womb” as “an act of protest”.

Green was given a conditional discharge for 12 months and ordered to pay £2,426 in costs and surcharge.

The Judge admitted the PSPO was "a significant interference" of Mr Green's freedom of belief, expression and assembly under under the European Convention on Human Rights, but said these had to be weighed against individuals accessing abortion services.

Mr Green, who is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, said: "I have been ordered to pay costs, frankly I would rather go to prison than pay this to the state that has banned the Bible."

But Louise McCudden, UK head of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, said: “People are fed up with seeing behaviour like Stephen Green’s in their communities, which is why Parliament voted to protect clinics across England and Wales.”

The conviction came a day after Home Secretary James Cleverly said his department is listening “very carefully” to responses to a consultation on draft non-statutory guidance to support the introduction of buffer zones across England and Wales.