58 minutes agoShareSaveAnna MeiselBBC File on 4 InvestigatesShareSaveBBCA secret recording, leaked to the BBC, reveals a senior police officer had serious concerns over the controversial arrest of a woman who took abortion pills when about 26 weeks pregnant – when she believed the pregnancy was only about six weeks along.Nicola Packer was arrested in hospital at the height of the Covid pandemic, a day after delivering a stillborn baby at home. The day after her arrest she was taken into custody in the back of a police van, still bleeding, having had major surgery.In April this year she went to court accused of having an illegal abortion. She was acquitted earlier this month.In the audio – from a 2020 meeting between Metropolitan Police officers and healthcare professionals – the Met’s child abuse investigation lead at the time can be heard saying: “It’s not a comfortable area for police to be operating in… any criminalisation around abortions.”He also questions whether the arrest was “the best for Nicola” under the circumstances.Despite the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deciding not to prosecute initially, Ms Packer was charged in 2023 after police asked the CPS to review the case.A Met Police spokesperson said it was “not unusual and is standard practice” for detectives to request that the CPS reviews its decisions.The force does not comment on the content of internal meetings, it added, which are designed to allow for full and frank discussions so that issues can be explored thoroughly and decisions made in a considered manner.The Met Police acknowledged how “incredibly difficult” the case had been for Ms Packer, but said its officers had conducted an evidence-led investigation “impartially and without favour”.”The public rightly expects us to pursue the truth – even in sad and complex circumstances”, the spokesperson said.Ms Packer has told the BBC she is also angry at midwives “for calling the police when they really didn’t have to”.The online meeting took place for three hours, nearly a week after Nicola Packer’s arrest, and was attended by 20 professionals.The Met’s child abuse lead at the time was joined by the officer who made the arrest, child death and neonatal specialists, and a senior midwife at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital – who first called the police.Such meetings are routine after the death of a child – aiming to establish what happened, learn lessons, and make sure mothers are provided with support.Ms Packer had taken abortion medication she had received through a pills-by-post system available during the pandemic. Based on her last period, it was estimated that she was about six weeks pregnant.When the pills took effect, she ended up delivering a stillborn baby at home – and then sought medical help in hospital.”I did say that I’d had a late miscarriage – because I was really scared to tell them I had taken abortion pills,” she tells File on 4 Investigates, in her first broadcast interview since her arrest.”I didn’t know if they were going to help me get the medical support I needed.”Nicola eventually told a senior midwife at the hospital that she had taken the abortion medication. The midwife then called the police.Getty Images”I went in in a very supportive manner,” the midwife can be heard saying in the leaked recording of the 2020 meeting.”I essentially said to her, ‘We’re here to care for you, and we need to know all the information… to support you in the right way.'”She goes on to explain to the group that Nicola had told her she was shocked when she had given birth to a stillborn baby.By then, the midwife says in the recording, Nicola was “looking like she wanted the conversation to end, and I didn’t want to interrogate her as such”. “I then advised her, because of the gestation assessment of the baby, that we would need to refer to the coroner for an investigation and also to inform the police.”The legal limit for abortion in the UK is 24 weeks of pregnancy. The stillborn baby was assessed to be about 26 weeks.If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via BBC Action LineNicola had to have surgery after giving birth. Shortly after the operation, she was arr …
