The leaked recording shows that the police had serious concerns

A secret recording that went on to the BBC reveals that a high -ranking police officer had serious concerns about the controversial arrest of a woman who took abortion pills at about 26 weeks pregnant – when she believed that pregnancy only lasted about six weeks.

Nicola Packer was arrested in the hospital at the climax of the Covid pandemic, one day after the prescription of a deadborn baby. The day after her arrest, she was custody in the back of a police car, which was still bleeding and had a great operation.

In April this year she went to court, which was accused of having illegal abortion. It was acquitted at the beginning of this month.

In the audio – from a meeting between the metropolises and medical experts – the investigation for child abuse examinations of metropolitan at this point can be heard: “It is not a convenient area for the police in … every criminalization for abortions.”

He also asks if the arrest was “the best for Nicola” under the circumstances.

Despite the crown culite, which decided not to pursue at first, Ms. Packer was charged in 2023 after the police asked the CPS to review the case.

A spokesman for the MET Police said that it was “not unusual and was a standard practice” for detective to apply for the CPS check its decisions.

The Force does not comment on the content of internal meetings, added, which were designed in such a way that complete and open discussions are made possible so that problems can be thoroughly examined and decisions can be researched.

The Met police admitted how “incredibly difficult” the case was for Ms. Packer, but said that his officials had “impartially and without favor” an evidence-controlled investigation.

“The public rightly expects us to pursue the truth – even under sad and complex circumstances,” said the spokesman.

Ms. Packer announced the BBC that she was also angry on midwives, “because they called the police if they really didn't have to”.

The online meeting took place for three hours, almost a week after the arrest of Nicola Packer and was visited by 20 experts.

At that time, the civil servant, the arrest, death and the newborn specialists for children, and a high -ranking midwife in the Chelsea in London and the Westminster Hospital became called.

Such meetings are routine after the death of a child – to determine what happened, learn lessons and ensure that the mothers receive support.

Ms. Packer had taken abortion medications that she had received from a pills-by post system that was available during pandemic. Due to her last period, it was estimated that it was about six weeks pregnant.

When the pills came into force, she delivered a deadborn baby at home – and then looked for medical help in the hospital.

“I said that I had had a late miscarriage – because I was really afraid to tell them that I took over abortion pills,” she says in her first broadcast interview since her arrest the file for 4 investigations.

“I didn't know if they would help me receive the medical support that I needed.”

Nicola finally told a high -ranking midwife in the hospital that she had taken the abortion medication. The midwife then called the police.

“I went very supportive,” says the midwife, who says in the trimmed out of 2020 in the leaked record of the meeting.

“I essentially said to her: 'We are here to take care of her and we have to know all the information to support her in the right way.”

She further explains to the group that Nicola had told her that she was shocked when she gave birth to a stillborn baby.

Until then, says the midwife in the recording, Nicola was “out as if she wanted to end the conversation, and I didn't want to interrogate her as such”.

“I then advised her because of the baby's pregnancy evaluation that we would have to refer to the forensic doctor in order to investigate an examination and also inform the police.”

The legal limit for abortion in Great Britain is 24 weeks of pregnancy. The stillborn baby was rated as about 26 weeks.

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Nicola had to be operated on after birth. Shortly after the operation, she was arrested and taken into custody the next day. It was held in a police cell for about 24 hours.

Ms. Packer says the midwife should be examined.

“For me, she just went in to try to win my self -confidence just so that she could use it against me.”

There is no legal obligation for doctors to report alleged crimes, and the midwife violates the confidentiality of the patients for reporting to the police, says Prof. Emma Cave, an expert in health regulation that has read a record of the recording.

She says that the midwife's initial assurance towards Ms. Packer that her care would be the “first concern”, “desseber” when it is said that the police are informed.

“If people think they are reported by visiting a police hospital, they could avoid treatment and have serious health consequences,” says Prof. Cave.

In response to what happened to Ms. Packer and other women, the Royal College of Obestricians and gynecologists published instructions to remind the members of the health professions that it is never in public interest to report women from the police who may have illegally canceled pregnancies.

It is and was the legal obligation of doctors to respect the patient's confidentiality, said college.

The Chelsea and Westminster employees “brought the processes and instructions available to them to harmonize,” said a hospital spokesman. “Your first priority, as in all cases, was to support and care for the patient.”

Nicola's case came to court last month – four and a half years after her arrest. She says she “frightened” to go to court, but also felt that the process had run for so long that she just wanted it “.

“She [prosecutors] tried to say that I knew how far I was when I took the first abortion pill. I didn't do it, “says Nicola.

When the foreman of the jury “did not guilty”, says Ms. Packer that she “only broke out into tears”.

“But then you start to feel trouble, the fact that it got that far.”

Prosecutors “exercise the greatest care when you consider these complex and traumatic cases,” said a CPS spokesman.

“Our task was not to decide whether Nicola Packer's actions were right or wrong; but a factual judgment about whether it knew that it went beyond the legal limit when it was accessible to abortion drugs.”

Ms. Packer believes that those who were involved in their case have to “be held accountable now”. She plans to submit a complaint with the metropolitan policy, the CPS and the NHS because of their treatment.

“I feel really sick – the way everything was treated. I didn't have to go straight from the hospital to the police station. I could have went home and recover for a few days.”

“It could just have been much more compassionate,” says Ms. Packer, “which causes less trauma than her.”