A retired pastor has appealed his conviction over breaching Northern Ireland’s abortion buffer zone laws, after preaching an open-air sermon on John 3:16 outside a hospital.
Clive Johnston, 78 from County Tyrone, was found guilty of two charges connected with his preaching near Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, in July 2024.
The prosecution said, under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act, he was “conducting a protest” which could be “influencing a protected person” in a buffer zone. He was also convicted of failing to comply with a direction to leave.
Buffer zones around hospitals in Northern Ireland, and similar laws elsewhere in the UK, are designed to prevent protests or behaviour that could influence people accessing abortion services within a set distance of clinics.
At the Court of Appeal in Belfast on Thursday, Johnston’s lawyers said he was wrongly convicted as it could not be established that any “protected person” was present, maintaining that the pastor was preaching the gospel and did not mention abortion.
Prosecution lawyers said the law was in place to make sure people accessing abortion services would be “insulated from [that] behaviour”, according to BelfastLive.
The Christian Institute, which is supporting the former Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland president, said the initial ruling “risks turning an ‘abortion buffer zone’ into a ‘Gospel censorship zone’”.
Judgement was reserved on the appeal, with Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan stating that a ruling will be given “as soon as possible”.
Johnston was fined £450 in May. District Judge Peter King said the pastor “was motivated by two reasons: to test the legislation and to influence anyone who heard him towards the Bible and the Christian message generally”.
Speaking after the hearing, Johnston said “that a positive outcome will help secure much-needed public assurance that there are no gospel-free zones in Northern Ireland.”
He added: “Nobody should be criminalised for expressing the basic truths of their faith. I preached an open-air gospel sermon on a Sunday morning, about the love that God has for all people. In Northern Ireland, of all places, surely we are allowed to express such a good and hopeful message. Yet I was convicted of a crime just for this.
“I have confidence that my right to speak freely and express my faith is protected under UK and international law. Likewise, it is the right of anybody in the area to be allowed to stop and listen to me if they would like to, or indeed to carry on without listening if preferred. It is not the role of the state to decide when and where somebody should be allowed to engage with the Christian message. The police should not be prohibiting peaceful expressions of faith.”
