{"id":137353,"date":"2025-05-14T03:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T03:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/i-was-right-to-be-frightened-nicola-packer-on-the-humiliation-and-trauma-of-her-trial-for-illegal-abortion-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T03:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T03:28:02","slug":"i-was-right-to-be-frightened-nicola-packer-on-the-humiliation-and-trauma-of-her-trial-for-illegal-abortion-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/i-was-right-to-be-frightened-nicola-packer-on-the-humiliation-and-trauma-of-her-trial-for-illegal-abortion-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I was right to be frightened\u2019: Nicola Packer on the humiliation and trauma of her trial for illegal abortion – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acquitted woman wants to ensure there\u200b is never again an abortion trial in England\u200b \u200b
\u201cI hate sitting in silence now,\u201d Nikki Packer says. A quiet room reminds her too much of the police cell she was locked into just hours after undergoing a traumatic stillbirth.
Arrested in hospital by uniformed officers while still recovering from surgery, she was accused of carrying out an illegal abortion. It took four-and-a-half years for her case to come to court, where last week she was unanimously cleared by a jury<\/a>.
Packer, 45, was charged with \u201cunlawfully administering to herself a poison or other noxious thing\u201d with the \u201cintent to procure a miscarriage\u201d, after taking abortion pills prescribed to her by a registered provider during the November 2020 Covid lockdown.
Under emergency legislation introduced during the pandemic \u2013 and later made permanent \u2013 medication could be dispatched by post for pregnancies up to 10 weeks\u2019 gestation.
Packer went on to deliver a foetus estimated to be about 26 weeks\u2019 gestation. The prosecution had claimed she had known she was more than 10 weeks pregnant when she took the pills; an allegation Packer has always denied.
She may have been found not guilty, but Packer knows she will never be the same; she is nervous of seeking medical help now.
At her trial, the prosecution tried to claim she was lying when she said she did not initially tell medical staff (who went on to call in police) that she had taken abortion pills because she was afraid it would affect the quality of care she received.
\u201cBut they didn\u2019t really help me, did they?\u201d she says. \u201cSo I think I was right to be frightened.\u201d
And she no longer trusts the police \u2013 when her phone died, and she needed help, she asked the drunk man outside a London station for directions, rather than a police officer.
She also knows she has not yet fully processed the enormity of what happened to her. Just days after the verdict \u201cI\u2019m still running on adrenaline\u201d, she says. But she is seeking answers from the Crown Prosecution Service and the Met police as to how she got here.
\u201cThere are other ways that it could have been handled after I\u2019d been in hospital,\u201d she says. \u201cI could have been sent home to recuperate. There was no legal need for me to be taken straight to a police station.\u201d
\u201cIt was absolutely horrific to get to from the hospital to Charing Cross police station,\u201d she added. With no cars available, she was put in the back of the police van, and \u201cI had to sit basically on a plank of wood, with no seatbelts on it, driving around London like that.\u201d In custody, she was not given her anti-clotting medication on time, told it was \u201cnot a priority\u201d.
\u201cI was still in pain, I was extremely tired, I felt very weak and mentally, just did not really understand what was going on,\u201d she said.
The prosecution clouded her life for almost half a decade. \u201cI kept doing things, but you\u2019re not fully present in the moment,\u201d she says.
She spent tens of thousands of pounds on her defence. A crowdfunder helped to meet at least some of her costs. \u201cI read all [the comments] several times,\u201d she says. \u201cI was reading them in the run-up and during the trial as well. There are so many people out there that don\u2019t believe this should be happening, there\u2019s so much support.\u201d
Years before her case ever reached Isleworth crown court, Packer\u2019s barrister, Fiona Horlick KC, asked her what she was most of afraid of.
\u201cI\u2019m most scared going to prison,\u201d she says. The next worst thing, was \u201cthe trial, just giving evidence and having to be speaking in front of all these people\u201d.
She knew she had the option to plead guilty, but she did not consider it for more than a \u201csplit second\u201d, she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have looked at myself doing that, because it wasn\u2019t true.\u201d
While she waited for her case to come to court, she saw another woman, Carla Foster, convicted of, and jailed for, an illegal abortion before her sentence was suspended by the appeal court.
\u201cI was really angry, angry that she had to go through this,\u201d Packer says. \u201cShe spent 35 days in prison. Why? Who did that help? What was the point? There was no point in sending her to prison, and then you have to think about the impact on the rest of her life.\u201d
But the case also brought home the reality of what she was herself facing, and she began asking questions she had never imagined having to contemplate. \u201cHow do I prepare for the worst outcome?\u201d she says. \u201cDo I rent my flat out and cancel Netflix? What do I do? I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve never been in this situation before.\u201d
\u201cThe rational part of your brain can tell you it\u2019s unlikely to happen, but then the other part \u2026 it still could happen,\u201d she adds. \u201cSo it\u2019s a horrible thing to live under, and the fact that it comes with a potential life [sentence] in prison.\u201d
When Packer\u2019s trial finally came around at the end of April, the prosecution opening including details of her sex life, which included her being part of BDSM communities.
\u201cIt was completely unnecessary, and it was just done to make me look bad,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd potentially you\u2019re dealing with something that people may never have heard of, wouldn\u2019t understand, may have a bad opinion of. It was completely not needed.\u201d
At one point, Packer was forced to sit in court while lawyers discussed the size of her nipples with the judge. Intimate photographs of her were shown to the jury; evidence of her flat stomach.
\u201cIt was quite humiliating,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want anybody to see those photos, but I knew that it was for my own good.
\u201cWe hid what we could, but because my nipples were such a hot topic, we couldn\u2019t blank them out in pictures,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not nice knowing that people have seen such intimate pictures of you.\u201d
\u201cIt was horrendous giving evidence, absolutely awful,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was very upsetting, I spent most of the time crying while I was doing it, but I got through it because I knew that I was right.\u201d
And the jury agreed, finding her not guilty after about six hours of deliberations.
\u201cIt was just wonderful to get that verdict,\u201d she said. \u201cI just feel that although the last four and a half years been absolutely horrific, I don\u2019t know if I could say at the moment it was worth it, but to have that validation of being found unanimously not guilty by a jury of my peers, it\u2019s an amazing thing.\u201d
Having cleared her name, Packer is now throwing her weight behind the voices calling for a change in the law that would decriminalise abortion. A parliamentary vote is expected on the issue as early as this summer.
\u201cI do hope that the law does get changed \u2013 it should do,\u201d she said. \u201cAbortion is healthcare. It should not be treated as anything other than that.\u201d
A CPS spokesperson said: \u201cWe recognise the profound strength of feeling these cases evoke, but have a duty to apply laws passed by parliament fairly and impartially.\u201d
But Packer says: \u201cThis could happen to anybody, I think that\u2019s what\u2019s really scary about it. With the law being as it is, a tragic accident and you\u2019re up on trial, and it\u2019s why the law needs to change.\u201d
Packer wants to make history as the last woman in England to be prosecuted for an abortion. She has heard of other women whose cases are in the early stages of the criminal justice system, and she wants to use her voice to ensure they never see the inside of a courtroom.
\u201cI can\u2019t really say it was worth it,\u201d she says, \u201cbut at least it would have meant something.\u201d
Aside from campaigning for legislative change, how does Packer plan to move on from this? \u201cThat is a very good question,\u201d she says. \u201cI do feel a bit like I need to find myself again.\u201d
While awaiting trial, she sought comfort in familiar music and television; she listened to the same albums from her favourite rock artists on repeat, rewatched her favourite series\u2019 back-to-back. But she found she could no longer watch Orange Is The New Black.
\u201cI had to turn it off,\u201d she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t watch it any more because I started to get a really eerie feeling; this is set in a prison, I might go to a prison.\u201d
But, she adds: \u201cI started re-watching it last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Acquitted woman wants to ensure there\u200b is never again an abortion trial in England\u200b \u200b \u201cI hate sitting in silence now,\u201d Nikki Packer says. A quiet room reminds her too much of the police cell she was locked into just hours after undergoing a traumatic stillbirth.Arrested in hospital by uniformed officers while still recovering from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}