Co. Antrim woman challenges judge in abortion protest zone case
A Co. Antrim woman who is appealing a conviction over an illegal abortion protest inside a hospital’s “safe access zone,” has lodged a complaint that the judge hearing her case is biased and not impartial.
Representing herself at Ballymena magistrates’ court, Claire Brennan told judge Ciaran Moynagh she had lodged an official complaint through the offices of the Lady Chief Justice that he should not hear her case.
She said it had come to her attention that before His Honour was appointed as a County Court Judge earlier this month, he was the solicitor in a number of abortion rights and reform cases. The mother-of-four claimed that Judge Moynagh had labelled himself, when he was a solicitor, as “an abortion activist for human rights.”
“You describe yourself as ‘challenging the status quo on abortion rights’,” Mrs Brennan told judge Moynagh and put to him that, “you should remove yourself from my case.”
In December last year Mrs Brennan, from the Doneysheil Road in Rasharkin, was convicted of doing an act in a safe access zone at the Causeway Hospital on 3 October 2023.
The charge details how she conducted “an anti-abortion protest, with the intention, or being reckless as to whether it would have the effect of influencing a protected person in connection with their attendance at the protected premises.”
She was also convicted of failing to comply with a direction to leave the zone on the same date and for those offences, a judge in the lower court fined her £750.
In the first case of its kind in Northern Ireland, the court heard how police had been called to the hospital following reports that two people were protesting within the safe access zone.
Despite “clear signage,” officers found an anti-abortion sign on display and tried to engage with the protestors who ignored their requests to leave, stating they were “morally obligated to protest.”
Mrs Brennan and 39-year-old David Hall, from Kingsbury Gardens in Coleraine, were arrested after they finally agreed to leave the zone but they were not taken into police custody.
Hall admitted his guilt but Mrs Brennan contested the case, maintains her innocence and is lodging an appeal against both the conviction and the sentence.
In court yesterday, Mrs Brennan put to judge Moynagh, “ask yourself, can you judge me fairly?”
“And if you can’t, I want another judge and I want a new judge and a new and fresh trial with a new judge,” the mother-of-four declared.
“It is not for me to answer those questions,” judge Moynagh responded.
He added that he would hear arguments from Mrs Brennan and the prosecution on the issue so adjourning the case, he allowed the defendant two weeks to lodge a skeleton argument and the PPS a further week to respond.