Couple who bought abortion pills online given community orders

A man and woman who were accused of buying pills to induce an illegal abortion have been sentenced to community orders.

Sophie Harvey, 25, had previously stood trial accused of procuring her own miscarriage when she was 19.

Prosecutors had alleged she took the medication after learning she was at 28 weeks and five days gestation – meaning she could not get a legal abortion in England as she was beyond the 24-week cutoff.

Harvey and her boyfriend, Elliot Benham, 25, always accepted they had bought abortion pills online. But Harvey insisted she had never taken them and had instead given birth to a stillborn child in the bathroom of her home in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in September 2018.

The couple had stood trial at Gloucester crown court in May this year, but the jury was discharged by a judge after an application by their lawyers who cited inaccurate reports of the proceedings by the BBC.

Harvey described to the court how she was left upset and confused after going into labour at home and wrapped the baby in a towel before placing it into the household waste bin.

Following the collapse of the trial, prosecutors had sought a new trial, and a date had been fixed for February next year.

But at a further hearing on Wednesday, a new charge of conspiracy to procure a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage was put to them, which they both admitted. The crown also accepted a plea of endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child.

They pleaded not guilty to procuring a poison to be used with intent to procure a miscarriage, and doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. Harvey also pleaded not guilty to administering poison with intent to procure a miscarriage.

The court agreed for the charges to lie on file.

Sentencing the pair at Gloucester crown court, Judge Ian Lawrie KC said: “I am sadly too familiar with your case. I am familiar with the background and what took place. It has been a long and painful journey.”

The judge added: “The impact upon your lives has been traumatic and I am sure this will continue for some time. If you can, and I doubt it, put it all behind you and get on with your lives.”

Harvey was handed an 18-month community order, alongside an 18-month mental health treatment order, the latter of which the judge said she should “not view as punishment”.

Benham was sentenced to an 18-month community order and 150 hours of unpaid work to be completed over 12 months.

During the previous trial, Harvey told police she and Benham had gone to a clinic in August 2018 after she found out she was pregnant, but they were told she was “too far gone” for a legal termination.

She had clutched a hot-water bottle and appeared to hyperventilate as she struggled to express her distress at losing the baby in September 2018 and her shock when she and her boyfriend were arrested on suspicion of killing the child in November of that year.

She bowed her head and shook as the jury at Gloucester crown court was told how police arrived after midnight to detain her on suspicion of murder, held her in a cell and took a sample of her hair, which was checked for traces of abortion drugs.

The prosecution had claimed the couple had ordered abortion pills illegally online, and that Harvey had taken one. Prosecutors said the couple then disposed of the baby.

At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, the prosecutor Anna Vigars told the court that the couple had been together for about one year when Harvey unexpectedly became pregnant. When they were told how advanced the pregnancy was, she said “both of them appeared very shocked by the news they were given”.

She said “alarm bells were triggered” when Harvey did not seek antenatal care, and “eventually the police were asked to go and see her”.

Defending Harvey, Tom Godfrey said she had been “retraumatised” by the court process, “having gone through the trauma of the stillbirth, to have to relieve the events seven years later”.

Clare Evans, defending Benham, said he had also been “deeply traumatised by what has happened over the last six years”, and that he “knows this was an avoidable set of circumstances that came upon them that they then dealt with very badly”.

Campaigners calling for a change in the law have criticised the prosecution, saying it had not been in the public interest to pursue the case.

One relative said the pair, who had never been in trouble with the police before, had been deeply changed by their experience. “They are both good kids but they are very different people now.”

The relative said it was “disgraceful” that the case had hung over them for so long. Another person close to Harvey said she never spoke about what happened – and to have been forced to do so in a crown court witness box was deeply traumatic.

A letter from Harvey’s mother, to the court, read: “I want to see my daughter gain her life back, and go and live life and be able to move on from all of this. I just want to see my happy little girl again.”

Letters from her friends were also read to the court, with one describing her as “completely broken.”

A CPS spokesperson said: “Our duty is to apply the law set by parliament impartially – especially when dealing with the most difficult or complex decisions. The defendants pleaded guilty to two offences, and after careful reflection we have concluded that it is not in the public interest to pursue further charges.”

Dr Tracey Masters, the British Society of Abortion Care Providers co-chair, said: “It can never be in the public interest to prosecute women for ending their own pregnancy, and we stand with all the other organisations who call for the law to be urgently changed.”

Last year, Carla Foster, from Staffordshire, was jailed for ending her pregnancy beyond the time limit during a coronavirus lockdown.

Her sentence of 28 months, imposed at Stoke crown court, was later reduced to 14 months at the court of appeal and suspended, freeing her from custody a month after she was jailed, with judges saying her case called for “compassion, not punishment”.

In the last parliament, MPs proposed amendments to the criminal justice bill that sought to change the law on abortion, but these were not put to a vote in parliament.

One had been tabled by the Labour MP, Stella Creasy, who said: “The prosecution of women for having an abortion under outdated laws in England and Wales has to stop – as the judge highlighted, the trauma of this has compounded an already distressing situation involving a vulnerable young woman, which has dragged on for six years.

“It’s time to decriminalise abortion and recognise this is a healthcare matter.”