Arrested for Silent Prayer: The Isabel Vaughan-Spruce Story
Source file: marchforlifeuk.mkv
March for Life UK – Interview Transcript
See the full interview here: Christian woman charged over silent prayer – ‘Orwellian’ crackdown in Britain
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce
…about what might happen to them as well because of this. And I’ve heard that from a lot of people, you know, just concerned about something as simple as praying when they’re in a public space.
I’m Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, and I’m co-director of March for Life UK. In 2022, I was first arrested simply for silently praying outside an abortion center, without engaging with anyone in any way or manifesting my Christian or pro-life beliefs in any way. I was completely acquitted in court the following year, yet, inexplicably, three weeks later I was re-arrested for doing exactly the same thing: just silently praying near the abortion center, not engaging with anyone in any way. After six months, that case was completely dropped.
And yet police continue to come out and question me. I made a claim against the police for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment and was awarded an out-of-court settlement of £13,000 in 2024.
At the end of October that year, national buffer zones were implemented, which was a slight change in the law, because before that they’d just been a local law that I’d been arrested under. But looking at that law, I realized I was still entitled to silently pray and exercise my very fundamental human right of silent prayer. And so that’s what I did outside the abortion center again. Police questioned me various times.
And then last December, I was actually given a charge for breaking that. So it certainly seems very Orwellian, and a lot of people have mentioned that particular word to me.
It seems that we’re really fostering a sense of intolerance in our communities. I’ve seen that on a local level here in Birmingham, with things becoming very polarized with people who have maybe different beliefs about a topic, which is a very emotional one. But that shouldn’t interfere with our most basic rights: our right to silently pray in our heads, to be able to think what we want, and certainly to be able to be wherever any member of the public is allowed to be. This is still a public street, no matter that there’s a buffer zone on it.
And I don’t believe that those who are pro-life or Christian should be treated as some kind of social pariah, which is how a lot of Christians are now feeling. I think we need to know our rights and to exercise our rights, and not to be intimidated by other people in this regard — particularly our rights under God as Christians to be able to pray wherever we want to pray, certainly if it’s something internal in our heads — and not to end up self-censoring because of that.
Prayer is a very, very important part of our life, of Christian life, and we certainly need more of that on the streets — more prayer, not less.
Second Speaker
This is the first prosecution of its kind in Britain, and indeed the West. And to be clear, standing within the buffer zone is not a crime. So the precise question is: what exactly has Isabel been charged with? We can only say it’s been for her thoughts, and the fact that she lifted up her heart and mind to God in prayer.
Where do I think the line is, or is appropriately set, for freedom of speech? Well, it certainly is not when the state purports to regulate the thoughts of any individual. We think that’s a red line that cannot be crossed. In the UK, under the Human Rights Act, there’s an absolute right to freedom of thought, and that means there are no qualifications allowed or permitted.