Isabel Vaughan-Spruce arrest in Birmingham: DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson challenges Rishi Sunak on abortion clinic exclusion zones

He was speaking after his party hosted a pro-life campaigner at Westminster who was arrested for praying silently inside a protest exclusion zone at a Birmingham abortion clinic.

Last month pro-life activist Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, 45, was arrested and charged with four counts of breaching an exclusion zone outside the abortion clinic at Kings Norton. She is due to appear in court on 2 February.

Birmingham City Council introduced the Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) at the clinic to ensure "people visiting and working there have clear access without fear of confrontation".

Her arrest, which was caught on video, saw a policeman ask her: "Are you praying?" to which she replied: "I might be praying in my head". She then declined to go voluntarily to the police station to answer questions and was placed under arrest.

Speaking afterwards she said: “Nobody should ever 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 and for praying, in a public space in the UK."

Today in the House of Commons, DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP asked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to review such laws and ensure that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are "beacons of religious freedom" across the world.

He added: "She [Vaughan-Spruce] was questioned by police about her thoughts – not her spoken or written words. This is unacceptable. This is not about abortion. This is about religious freedom in the United Kingdom in 2023.

"I trust our Prime Minister would agree that no one should be arrested because of their thoughts or prayers and our constabularies across the UK should be allowed to focus on tackling real crime instead of being required to police our thoughts."

Mr Sunak replied that the matters were under discussion in Parliament.

"Of course we believe in freedom of religion, belief and expression in this country, but we are also balancing that with the rights of women to seek legal and safe abortions," he replied. That is currently being discussed in this Parliament."

These issues are always matters of a free vote in Parliament, he added.

Last year the NI Assembly voted to bring similar buffer zones into Northern Ireland, which will come into force once given Royal Assent.

DUP MP Carla Lockhart, who campaigns against abortion, hosted Ms Vaughan-Spruce on a visit to Parliament on Tuesday.

"In Northern Ireland, the potential impact of our legislation is startling when you consider the consequences of GB legislation," the MP said. "We are now firmly in the realm where ‘thought crimes’ like prayer are a policing priority."

But former leader of the NI Green Party, Claire Bailey, said such buffer zones are an essential part of healthcare. She spearheaded the NI Assembly bill which will make it a criminal offence to protest inside 150m buffer zones around abortion clinics across NI.

"In my opinion, there is a deliberate campaign of harassment and intimidation happening outside healthcare facilities to prevent people from safely accessing essential health care, and in my opinion, that needs to stop," she said.

Asked if she felt protestors in Northern Ireland may likewise be arrested if they engage in silent prayer inside a buffer zone, she said: "That is for the police to determine, whether they are preventing a protected person within a buffer zone from safely accessing health care. "The PSNI will have the power to move anyone along who breaches the law, she said, with offenders facing fines of up to £500.