Northern Irish woman prosecuted for buying online abortion pills acquitted after law reform

A woman prosecuted for buying online abortion pills for her teenage daughter in Northern Ireland has been formally acquitted at Belfast Crown Court.

A judge directed a jury to find the woman not guilty after landmark reforms of the region's new laws.

The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been facing two counts of procuring and supplying the abortion drugs with the intent to procure a miscarriage, contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

But that 19th-century legislation fell away at midnight on Monday when abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland.

The prosecution offered no evidence on Wednesday morning.

After the verdict, the woman expressed her relief.

"My emotions are all over the place and I find it hard to put into words how I am feeling," she said in a statement.

"For the first time in six years I can go back to being the mother I was, without the weight of this hanging over me every minute of every day and I can finally move on with my life.

"I am so thankful that the change in the law will allow other women and girls to deal with matters like this privately in their own family circle."

Her solicitor Jemma Conlon, of Chambers Solicitors, added: "Today is a day of immense relief for my client, who now finds herself free from the burden of this prosecution that has been in her life for six years.

"It is a day that she will forever remember and a day that allows her to finally move on with her life privately without anguish and criminalisation."

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