Pastor Clive Johnston addresses the media outside Coleraine Court House after being fined £450 in relation to a prosecution under abortion buffer zone legislation. Photo: The Christian Institute. A retired pastor has been convicted after preaching a Bible verse during an open-air church service inside an abortion safe access zone in Northern Ireland.
Pastor Clive Johnston, 78, was fined £450 at Coleraine Magistrates Court on May 7 after being found to have breached safe access zone legislation outside Causeway Hospital in Coleraine. The case, supported by the Christian Institute, is believed to be the first prosecution of its kind involving an open-air church service in an abortion buffer zone.
Pastor Johnston had been preaching from John 3:16 and, according to the Christian Institute, made no reference or allusion to abortion. He was not accused of harassment or of impeding access to a clinic, but of intentionally influencing a protected person, or being reckless as to whether his actions had that effect. Speaking after the ruling, Pastor Johnston described the decision as “a dark day for Christian freedom”.
Bernadette Smyth of Precious Life said the conviction raised “deeply troubling questions” about civil and religious liberty in Northern Ireland. “When peaceful religious expression can be punished in this way, the rights of all citizens are placed at risk,” she said.