🙏URGENT PRAYER ALERT🙏 - Tuesday 28th Jan

Hi John,

Precious Life have issued a PRAYER ALERT for a mother who faces a jail sentence for praying outside an abortion centre in Northern Ireland.

Claire Brennan - a mother of four children - was dragged before a court and placed on trial in December 2024, where she bravely pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. However, a hefty £750 fine was imposed on her by Coleraine Magistrates’ Court.

Claire will appeal her unjust conviction on 28th January at 10:30am.

Claire was the first person to be arrested under “abortion buffer zone” laws back in October 2023. These draconian laws were passed by the SDLP, Sinn Fein, UUP, Green Party, and PBP, to criminalise women and men who pray within 250 metres of an abortion centre, and punish them with extortionate fines.

Claire was arrested while praying on her knees outside the baby-killing centre at Causeway Hospital in Coleraine. This hospital is part of the Northern Health Trust. Since abortion was legalised in March 2020, the official number of babies killed there is 1,947. And more than 8,490 babies have been killed across Northern Ireland.

On the day of her arrest, Claire had rosary beads in her hands and was holding a sign which read: ‘Pray to End Abortion'. A police officer accused her of causing “harassment, alarm and distress.” In response, she respectfully told the police officer, “…you have a duty to uphold this law, but I have a duty to uphold God’s law …We are not committing any offences …This is where we pray …The law of the land stops me from upholding the law of God. We pray for the babies who will be imminently killed in this hospital.”

During her trial, Claire courageously stood up before the court and told the judge that she had a right to pray.

"I am a Christian and a pro-life activist so my moral duty is to stand in the gap for the least of these little ones,” she told the court after holding her Bible aloft and taking an oath.

However the judge ignored her pleas of innocence and her defence of the unborn, He convicted her and fined her £750

Claire immediately lodged an appeal.

Claire says, "If the appeal doesn’t go through then I will be bound by the court to pay the fine. But I will not pay the fine and I will be sent to prison,"

Director of Precious Life Bernadette Smyth said, "Prayer should never be criminalised. This is a direct attack on the freedom to think, pray, and peacefully express one's beliefs in public places. The draconian 'buffer zones laws' in Northern Ireland must be scrapped NOW !!!"

Please pray at 10.30am on Tuesday for victory in Claire's court case - that Claire will be vindicated, and the right to pray in public is upheld and protected.