‘I hate sitting in silence now’: Nicola Packer on clearing her name after the trauma of her illegal abortion trial

UK woman says she hopes to make history as last woman in England prosecuted for abortion

“I hate sitting in silence now,” Nikki Packer says. A quiet room reminds her too much of the police cell she was taken to and 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.