Judge dismisses 'thought crime' case against duo who prayed outside abortion clinic

A judge in Birmingham has acquitted a Catholic priest and a pregnancy counsellor of so-called “thought crimes” after police charged the pair in connection with praying outside an abortion clinic

District Judge David Wain dismissed the case against Fr Sean Gough, 33, an assistant priest in Wolverhampton and Staffordshire, and Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, 45, of Malvern, Worcestershire, at a hearing at Birmingham Magistrates Court.

The pair were charged in December of violating a 150-metre Public Spaces Protection Order imposed around a British Pregnancy Advisory Services facility in the Kings Norton area by Birmingham City Council a month earlier.