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There was “absolutely nothing” to indicate that a woman accused of taking abortion pills illegally was pregnant in the weeks before she delivered a foetus, a court has heard.
Nicola Packer, 44, is on trial at Isleworth crown court accused of administering poison with intent to procure a miscarriage in November 2020, during the second Covid lockdown.
She obtained the pills after a remote consultation with MSI, a registered provider referred to in court as Marie Stopes, which had been prescribed to her under legislation that allows pills to be sent by post in pregnancies of under 10 weeks’ gestation.
She was arrested at the hospital she attended after delivering a foetus at home. The crown’s case is that Packer did not believe she was less than 10 weeks pregnant when she took the drugs.
The remote prescribing legislation was introduced during the Covid crisis, before being made permanent. Terminations are usually available up to 23 weeks and six days of pregnancy, with no time limits in place in certain circumstances, such as a severe foetal anomaly or if the mother’s life is at risk.
Giving evidence via video link, the witness, who cannot be named, said that Packer, whom she said she had been friends with for years, had come to stay with her and her husband during lockdown.
The jury heard that while staying with the couple – at their home in the UK and when the three travelled abroad together – the friend would regularly see Packer without clothes.
They had spent time in a swimming pool and in hot tubs, the court heard, and were comfortable enough together that Packer would not wear many clothes in the house.
The friend said she would see her “cooking with very little on, or walking round the house with very little on”.
“You were able to see her with no clothes on right up until the end of October 2020,” Fiona Horlick KC, defending Packer, said, addressing the friend.
“There was nothing that ever indicated to you that she was pregnant?” Horlick asked.
“Nothing,” the friend said, “absolutely nothing.” She said she had noticed “no change in dress size. No, nothing.”
The friend also said that Packer had not changed her drinking habits at any point, and described herself, her husband and Packer drinking “a lot” of wine and cocktails together. In October, she said, there was “no change from any other month, really”.
She also told the court that “some time in October” Packer had also “asked to borrow tampons”, later confirming to the court that she had supplied her with these, and said this was around the time they were isolating at home having returned from a trip abroad early that month.
“We had discussions about period pains, had discussions about whether hers were worse than mine, because I was going through menopause,” the friend said. “We had a discussion about that in October, she asked whether I had any tampons.”
Photographs of the defendant, some of which showed her in a state of undress, were also shown to the jury and the witness by the defence.
“I would like to make it crystal clear that it was the defence who chose to show those photographs to the witness,” the judge, Martin Edmunds KC, said. “They did so as part of the defence case, and clearly with the consent of the defendant.”
Also giving evidence, DC Lucy Gallimore told the court that after Packer phoned MSI on 2 November to seek an appointment for a termination, web searches on her phone included “is at home abortion treatment effective up to 12 weeks” and “abortion limit UK”.
She is alleged to have taken the pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, on 6 November.
The trial, which is scheduled to last between five and six weeks, continues.
