A 12-year prison sentence was imposed on a man who discreetly added an abortion-inducing medicine to a pregnant woman's orange juice, causing her to miscarry. Continue Reading
After sexually abusing his victim while she was wearing a blindfold, Stuart Worby, 40, crushed a mifepristone tablet into her drink and then gave her another abortion medicine.
Within a few hours, she experienced a serious physical reaction that included bleeding, diarrhea, vomiting, and a high temperature.
The miscarriage occurred at 15 weeks of pregnancy.
She miscarried her healthy baby the next day after Worby, of Dereham, Norfolk, finally agreed to accompany her to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital after initially refusing to do so.
As she lost her baby, Worby text a friend saying, 'it's working' and, 'there is lots of blood'.
In a victim impact statement read to the court the victim said she felt she had 'failed to protect my baby'. She said she had 'gone from fertility clinic to fertility clinic' and 'being a mother was a dream to me'.
She added: 'This pain will never leave me knowing that this baby could have been my only chance to be a mother in this lifetime. I haven't been able to conceive and have another baby.'
By convincing a friend's partner to pretend she was pregnant, Worby was able to procure two different kinds of abortion medicines, which she then gave to her partner after receiving a private prescription.
Prosecutors characterized his actions as "deliberate, well planned, and callous" when he crushed a mifepristone tablet into his victim's drink without her knowledge.
The victim was around 15 weeks pregnant. Worby, from Dereham, Norfolk, used deceit to have sex with the woman and then put several tablets of misoprostol, another abortion medication, inside her.
In addition to eight years in prison for sexual assault by penetration, Mr. Justice Joel Bennathan sentenced him to 12 years in prison for giving poison or using a tool with the intention of causing a miscarriage.
Worby was also mandated to compensate his victim with £10,000.
Nueza Cepeda, 39, a Portuguese national from Dereham, who bought the pills for him, admitted to providing a tool to induce a miscarriage and was sentenced to 22 months in prison with a two-year suspension.