A woman has been cleared of illegally terminating a pregnancy, after taking abortion pills during lockdown.

Nicola Packer, 45, took the pills at home in November 2020. She had been prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol after a remote consultation.

She later delivered a foetus, which the court heard was estimated to be around 26 weeks in gestation, which she brought with her to Chelsea and Westminster hospital, Isleworth crown court heard.

She was arrested in hospital, later charged with “unlawfully administering to herself a poison or other noxious thing” with the “intent to procure a miscarriage”.

Packer, then 41, had been prescribed the medication under emergency pandemic legislation – later made permanent – that allows for pills to be dispatched by post after a remote consultation in pregnancies up to 10 weeks.

The prosecution had alleged that she believed she was more than 10 weeks pregnant at the time she took the pills.

But she denied the charges, and was found not guilty by the jury of nine women and three men, after the two-week trial.

“The facts of this case are a tragedy but they are not a crime and Ms Packer is not guilty of this offence,” Fiona Horlick KC, defending Packer, said in her closing speech on Tuesday.

“It is hard to imagine how traumatically awful it must have been for Ms Packer thinking that she would only see blood clots to look into the toilet bowl and see a small but fully formed baby,” she told the jury.

“Four and a half years later you can see how she is still utterly traumatised by that.”