A CHURCH of England curate has lost her campaign for two doctors to be prosecuted for performing a late abortion on a foetus with a cleft palate.

The Crown Prosecution Service announced yesterday that the two will not face criminal charges. The Rev Joanna Jepson, curate of St Michael’s in Chester, had sought a judicial review of a decision by police to take no action.

Miss Jepson, a Cambridge graduate, was born with a jaw defect and has a brother with Down’s syndrome.

The termination was performed in Herefordshire in 2001 on a 28-week-old foetus with a bilateral cleft lip and palate four weeks after the legal limit for abortion of a foetus without a serious handicap.

Miss Jepson, who discovered the late abortion when investigating published statistics, won permission from the High Court in December 2003 to challenge West Mercia Police’s failure to investigate.

Her lawyers argued that, under the Abortion Act 1967, a cleft lip and palate were not a “serious handicap”.

Jim England, the chief Crown prosecutor for West Mercia, said: “This complaint has been investigated most thoroughly by the police and the CPS has considered a great deal of evidence before reaching its decision.

“The issue is whether the two doctors who had authorised the termination were of the opinion, formed in good faith, that there was a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical and mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.

“I consider that both doctors concluded that there was a substantial risk of abnormalities that would amount to the child being seriously handicapped.

“The evidence shows that these two doctors did form this opinion and formed it in good faith.

“In these circumstances I decided there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that there should be no charges against either of the doctors.”

The CPS considered medical records, guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, evidence from a number of professionals involved in the case and interviews with the two doctors.

Opinions were also obtained from independent medical experts.

Miss Jepson was not available for comment yesterday, although a diocesan spokesman said that the decision was not unexpected. After the High Court hearing in 2003, Miss Jepson said that neither her facial deformity nor her brother’s condition had prevented them from leading positive and fulfilling lives.

She added: “The baby in this case did not have this opportunity, despite the availability of excellent and routine medical help. The benefits of this surgery would have been positive for both the child and family.”

And writing in today’s Church of England Newspaper, she addresses the present political debate on abortion. Of the three party leaders questioned for Cosmopolitan magazine, she says: “Only Michael Howard, perhaps with an instinct for just how much the idea of abortion is increasingly bothering the public conscience, came anywhere near actually intimating his intent to bring about a change in the law.”

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