A woman at the centre of a freedom of expression row, which attracted the attention of the US Department of State, has been found guilty of breaching a “buffer zone” outside an abortion clinic.
Livia Tossici-Bolt, 63, was convicted of two public order offences for breaching a protected zone outside a British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) clinic in Bournemouth in March 2023.
She stood outside the clinic on two consecutive days holding a sign that read: “Here to talk, if you want to.”
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Despite not shouting, obstructing access or displaying graphic imagery, she was prosecuted for breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) issued by a local council that prohibits any attempt to “interfere” with a clinic user or express “disapproval” within a designated “buffer zone”.
In a formal statement on X, issued ahead of her hearing at Poole magistrates’ court, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) — a bureau within the US Department of State — confirmed that a senior advisor had recently met with Tossici-Bolt, adding: “We are monitoring her case … It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.”
Not so long ago, this would have been a rare American intervention into the domestic affairs of a close ally. Now it’s just the latest flashpoint in a growing ideological fault line between the US and the UK.
At the Munich Security Conference in February, for instance, Vice President J.D. Vance accused Britain of leading the European charge to suppress dissent, with abortion-clinic buffer zones mentioned as a troubling example. During a later meeting with Sir Keir Starmer in Washington, Vance also referenced the UK’s Online Safety Act, warning that “infringements on free speech” were affecting not only British citizens, but “American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens”. His remarks were echoed by Donald Trump in a podcast interview following the same meeting, when the President described the UK government’s efforts to force Apple to create a backdoor into its encrypted messaging platform as like “something you hear about in China”.
Standing silently outside an abortion clinic with a sign, especially a gentle one, may not strike some as a serious speech violation. When the first PSPO covering abortion zones was created in 2018, it followed clear evidence that women attending such clinics were subject to harassment, “having to run a daily gauntlet” of protesters engaging in behaviour that would never be protected under the European Convention on Human Rights (incorporated into UK law in 1998). Understood in this context, buffer zones are morally complex: perhaps less about speech rights per se and more about protecting women from distress at moments of acute vulnerability.
The Home Office asserted that any attempt to influence a woman’s decision within a buffer zone is unlawful, regardless of intent or form
Nonetheless, if you strip away the culture-war framing, which often centres on the pro-life/pro-choice debate, there is a deeper free speech issue at work here. Tossici-Bolt’s conviction reflects a broader, worrying shift in UK legal culture: that criminal sanction no longer targets your conduct itself, but how that conduct is perceived by others.
What makes this case especially significant is that it comes just months after the UK Parliament voted to upscale the buffer zone rules, replacing the patchwork of local PSPOs with uniform criminal law.
PSPOs had been used by a handful of councils to restrict abortion clinic protests, but they were widely criticised as legally inconsistent, onerous for the councils to implement and reactive in nature. In response, Parliament brought in a national regime. Under Section 9 of the Public Order Act 2023 — implemented in 2024 — it is now a criminal offence across England and Wales for anyone other than patients, staff or companions to “do an act” within 150 metres of a clinic that is “reckless” as to whether it has the effect of: a) “influencing” any person’s decision to access abortion services; b) “obstructing or impeding” any person; or c) “causing harassment, alarm or distress to any person” in connection with their decision.
Section 9 essentially mirrors the function of local PSPOs — but with one important difference. Whereas PSPOs, such as the one under which Tossici-Bolt is now being tried, outlawed “interference” and expressions of “disapproval”, Section 9 also criminalises “influence” — a term so vague that it is left undefined in the legislation.
Civil liberties groups have been quick to point out the dangers of this vagueness. Targeting coercive conduct like obstruction and harassment — as Section 9 (b) and (c) do — is one thing. Targeting “influence” — especially when the law doesn’t say what it is — is another, and it can only invite wide, discretionary interpretation.
Under the previous Conservative government, the Home Office acknowledged these risks and issued draft non-statutory guidance for police and prosecutors. The aim was to ensure that buffer zones prevented genuine harassment or obstruction, whilst allowing some limited approaches to women attending clinics.
The guidance stated that the authorities should not “limit, interfere or otherwise penalise” people for exercising their Article 9 ECHR rights (freedom of thought and religion). It also clarified that “influence” would require “more than mere mention of abortion or the provision of information”. Nor would “discussing or offering help … necessarily amount to ‘influence’”.
This, however, was shelved under the new Labour administration. In revised guidance issued when the law came into effect last October, the Home Office asserted that any attempt to influence a woman’s decision within a buffer zone is unlawful, regardless of intent or form. It also specified that banned conduct includes handing out anti-abortion leaflets, prayer, vigils and even silent presence.
Interestingly, the judgment in Tossici-Bolt’s case, which centred on a breach of a PSPO, seems to reflect the new reality of the Section 9 regime, focusing on perceived harm rather than the objective nature of her actions.
In her ruling, District Judge Orla Austin found that Tossici-Bolt’s refusal to leave the safe zone after being asked to do so constituted a breach, despite her claim that she was simply offering consensual conversation. Regarding Tossici-Bolt’s suggestion during her evidence that the complainant could have been told “they were wrong, and they could not have been distressed”, Judge Austin said: “I find she lacks insight that her behaviour could have a detrimental effect on people using the clinic.”
Johnston didn’t mention abortion, didn’t address any patients — yet he was charged with conducting a protest “intended to influence”
There’s no evidence that Tossici-Bolt approached anyone or tried to change their mind, and the sign she was holding could arguably be seen as an invitation, not an intervention. But given the ruling in this case, it seems all but certain that her actions would fall foul of Section 9, which has yet to be tested in the English and Welsh courts.
Not that we need to speculate. Consider the case of Clive Johnston, a 76-year-old pastor in Northern Ireland, who led a Sunday service on a grassy patch across a dual carriageway from a hospital with an abortion clinic. He didn’t mention abortion, didn’t address any patients — just stood beside a wooden cross, playing a ukulele and singing hymns. Yet he was charged with conducting a protest “intended to influence” under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act 2023: legislation remarkably similar to Section 9, which criminalises activities that are “reckless” as to whether they influence a patient, or cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Many in Northern Ireland had predicted that once operationalised, the term “influence” would lead to controversy. So serious were the concerns about potential overreach that the Province’s Attorney General, Dame Brenda King, referred the legislation to the UK Supreme Court in 2023, arguing it restricted fundamental rights under the ECHR. Dame Brienda contended that the “influence” element was unnecessary and that the law should focus solely on obstruction and harassment.
The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that without the term “influence” activists could claim they were offering help or prayer, rather than obstructing or harassing. A blanket ban on “influence”, the Court reasoned, was necessary to close legal loopholes.
But this assumes that “influence” is inherently about intervening — dissuading those seeking an abortion from accessing services or attempting to change their decision. Johnston’s case doesn’t fit this mould. Indeed, it’s a weaker example of potential influence than Tossici-Bolt’s. That someone on the way to the hospital, or even inside it, might possibly have heard or seen Johnston playing a ukulele whilst preaching a sermon that never mentioned abortion was enough to bring a criminal charge. If he could be prosecuted under this law, Tossici-Bolt almost certainly would be, too.
It’s easy to dismiss US interventions on this topic as performative or political. But whether or not the Trump administration is playing to domestic constituencies, the concern raised is real. The cases of Tossici-Bolt and Johnston share a common feature: the alleged “influence” comes not from what is said or done, but from the mere possibility that someone nearby might interpret their presence a certain way and feel judged, unsettled or reminded of a contested moral issue.
This reveals the law’s most dangerous tendency: the shift from regulating conduct to what Roland Barthes might call “connotation-policing”, where the meaning assigned to various “signifiers” — a wooden cross, a ukulele hymn or even a polite offer of conversation — becomes the basis for criminal suspicion.
As with the UK’s perception-based “non-crime hate incident” (NCHI) regime, or Ofcom’s exhortation to social media platforms to go “above and beyond” the Online Safety Act when it comes to censoring “harmful” content, the offence is not necessarily the action itself but what it might suggest or represent to other people.
That’s why the issues at stake here go far beyond the politics of pro-choice or pro-life. A society that allows unfashionable symbols — like those of Christianity — to be defined solely by the negative, second-order interpretations of those whom they offend risks silencing dissent, creating a de facto ban on any opposition to progressive orthodoxy.
