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A woman has gone on trial in London accused of illegally taking pills in order to induce an abortion during the second coronavirus lockdown.
Nicola Packer, 44, was arrested in November 2020 after she went to hospital having miscarried a foetus, and later reported to staff that she had taken abortion medication.
She had been sent the drugs by a registered provider, MSI, referred to in court as Marie Stopes, after a telephone consultation with a nurse on 4 November, Isleworth crown court heard.
“At about 3pm on Saturday, November 7, 2020, the defendant Nicola Packer, then aged 41, attended the Chelsea and Westminster hospital,” the prosecutor Alexandra Felix KC told the court. “She reported to a nurse that she was 16 to 18 weeks pregnant but “thought she had miscarried”.
“Miss Packer went on to say that she had found out about the pregnancy on previous Monday, 2 November, but had started bleeding heavily and passed the foetus and some blood clots which she had brought with her to the hospital in a rucksack.
“An obstetrician, a medical doctor, examined the foetus and estimated her, because it was female, to be 22 weeks gestation.”
Under English law, medical abortion without attending a clinic in person is available up to nine weeks and six days of pregnancy, with the pills dispatched by post after a remote consultation.
Early medical abortion was introduced as an emergency measure during Covid, with MPs later voting in 2022 to make the provisions permanent.
Under the Abortion Act 1967, a termination is available up to 23 weeks and six days of pregnancy if certain criteria are met, and beyond the usual time limit in some circumstances, such as evidence of severe foetal anomaly or a significant risk to the mother’s life.
“This trial is not about the defendant’s right to have an abortion; nor is it about why she chose to have an abortion, which was entirely a matter for her,” Felix told the court.
“It is the prosecution case that the defendant is guilty of intentionally procuring an unlawful abortion because she was in excess of 24 weeks pregnant and she knew that the gestation of the foetus exceeded 10 weeks at the time she took the medication.”
The court heard that Packer had a previous diagnosis of endometriosis, which she had undergone treatment for in the past, and had been prescribed a progesterone-only contraceptive pill to help manage her symptoms.
In a conversation with a call handler from MSI she said she had last had a period that began on about 21 September, and when asked whether it had been lighter than usual, had said “they’ve all been fairly light recently”, the court heard.
She said she had not been taking hormonal contraception during the last three months, as she had run out during the last lockdown and decided to take a break. Following the consultation, she was told she would be sent pills for an early medical abortion at home.
Opening the case against Packer, Felix said police had obtained phone searches from around the time she took the pills, which included “difference between miscarriage and abortion” and “can abortion pills work later in pregnancy?”
“If Nicola Packer thought she was early in pregnancy, why was she concerned to know whether abortion pills work later in pregnancy?” Felix asked the court.
She also highlighted searches from Packer on 6 November including “medical abortion from 10 weeks to 24 weeks”, “can abortion pill be detected in urine”, and “how long does a later stage miscarriage take”.
Other searches on her phone around the same time into how long an abortion would take suggested she had not started bleeding, or delivered a foetus, Felix said.
“All of these searches were all at a time when Nicola Packer could not have known what the foetus looked like nor its size,” Felix told the court. “Yet the searches suggest that she knows that the foetus she is carrying is more than 10 weeks old.”
At 5.07am in the morning on 7 November, Packer had searched “if you late miscarry at home what do you do with the foetus”, Felix told the court, “which suggests that by now Nicola Packer had miscarried”.
Packer called 111 several hours later to report that she had had a “late-stage miscarriage”, estimating the foetus to be about 18 weeks, but did not report that she had taken abortion medication.
“The crown says that she gave at least a misleading account and indeed a dishonest one,” Felix told the court.
Packer was advised to go to hospital, and did not initially disclose to medical staff that she had taken abortion medication.
It was only after she was told by a senior midwife, Claire Baker, that “she was there to care for her, that her safety was their priority and that what whatever happened they were there to support her”, that Packer told staff she had taken medication supplied to her by MSI, the court heard.
“She was advised that the police would be called and the coroner would have to be informed,” Felix said.
“In this case, because she is likely to say that she honestly believed that she was less than 10 weeks gestation,” Felix told the court, “then it will be for the crown to prove that she did not honestly believe that she was less than 10 weeks pregnant”.
The trial continues.
