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A RETIRED pastor from Sion Mills has denied protesting in an abortion buffer zone outside Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital last year.
Seventy-seven-year-old Clive Johnston from Melmount Road has no previous criminal record but now faces two charges under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act.
The charges relate to holding an open-air service on the edge of a buffer zone opposite the Causeway Hospital in July 2024.
At Coleraine Magistrates Court, the Sion man pleaded not guilty to failing to comply with a direction to leave a safe access zone under Section 6 of the act, and to conducting a protest with the intent, or being reckless as to whether, it had the effect of influencing a protected person in connection with accessing the premises.
Under the act, which received Royal Assent on February 6, 2023, anti-abortion protests and related behaviours are prohibited within established safe access zones and the law is enforced by the PSNI.
Johnston told the court that, although he objects to the extension of abortion services to Northern Ireland, he was not protesting outside the hospital on July 7 last year. He said he was delivering a sermon and spreading the Gospel.
District Judge Peter King has invited lawyers from both sides to submit additional written arguments before making a decision. Both sides are expected to lodge skeleton arguments addressing the legislation and how various articles of the European Convention on Human Rights apply.
The arguments are scheduled to be heard on March 31 at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court.
