'Conversation is being criminalised!' Anti-abortion campaigner defended after being convicted of buffer zone breach: 'Destroying our nation's freedoms'

Tossici-Bolt was given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £20,000 after holding a sign outside the clinic's buffer zone - which read "here to talk, if you want".

In a statement outside court today, Tossici-Bolt described her conviction as a "dark day for freedom" in the UK.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce has leapt to the defence of Livia Tossici-Bolt afer being convicted of two buffer zone breaches

GB News / ADF International

Vaughan-Spruce stated: "I find it particularly frustrating that our friends in the US have already tried to help us see the problems of continuing down this road of censorship, but the authorities seem resolute on destroying our nation's freedoms for the sake of their own ideology.

"Whether it's with council officers or police or even in the judiciary system, it's really concerning."

Reflecting on her own case, Vaughan-Spruce recalled how she was awarded more than £10,000 in a court settlement after the police "continued to falsely arrest her" for silently praying.

She told GB News: "It started right back in 2022, I was arrested in an abortion centre buffer zone in Birmingham for simply silently praying in my head. I was completely acquitted in court, and yet two or three weeks later, I was rearrested for exactly the same thing, for silently praying.

Vaughan-Spruce said Britain is 'criminalising conversation'

GB News

"And for those who say that wasn't the reason, the police officer actually told me that my prayers were an offence. I had no Bible or rosary beads, I had no leaflets, no posters, I wasn't interacting with anyone - yet I was re-arrested again and had to wait six months before that case was dropped."

Revealing how she was forced to take the police to court, she added: "Police were coming out giving me tickets, telling me I was going to be fined and that I was breaching the zone. In the end, I had to make a claim against the police for unlawful arrests, false imprisonment and assault - and I was awarded a court settlement for £13,000.

"I finally thought that was the end of it. But since then, week after week, the police have been coming out, telling me that it isn't my prayers that are now the issue, but just who I am. That knowing who I am means that I'm causing someone else harassment.

"That's particularly concerning, because harassment isn't just banned in abortion centre buffer zones, harassment is rightly banned across the UK anywhere. So if just knowing who I am is causing people harassment, then there's simply nowhere left for me to go in public - am I to stay at home? Is it harassment for people I live with? That's how ludicrous it's becoming."