Anti-abortion campaigner Livia Tossici-Bolt was convicted for protesting outside a Bournemouth clinic, despite support from the White House
A pro-life activist backed by the White House has said she is fighting for free speech.
Livia Tossici-Bolt, 64, was convicted on Friday for protesting outside an abortion clinic by holding a sign that read: “Here to talk if you want to.”
The mother of three was handed a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £20,026 in costs after the 2023 protests in Bournemouth, Dorset.
On Saturday, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “What I’m going to do [now]? There isn’t much I can do, isn’t it?
“I’ve been given this conditional discharge, and I will continue my fight for freedom of speech.”
The dual UK-Italian citizen stood diagonally opposite a British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) clinic in Bournemouth, approximately 50 metres away, holding a sign on two consecutive days in March 2023.
She refused requests to leave the area, claiming that she had not been given an adequate reason to do so, and declined to pay two fixed penalty notices issued by the council.
Mrs Tossici-Bolt was convicted at Poole Magistrates Court on Friday of breaching a ban on protests in a protected buffer zone.
Giving her verdict, District Judge Orla Austin said that Tossici-Bolt was not “lawfully exercising” her rights of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Mrs Tossici-Bolt told Today: “It was purely inviting consensual conversation and I think in the public space, everybody can do that. And this, I don’t think is detrimental. I think it is very beneficial for everyone.”
She added: “I was not there to express my views. That’s the point. I was there to have a free conversation, consensual conversation, to anyone who wanted to speak to me, and not all the topics I want to speak. I was there to listen.”
The prosecution gained global attention this week after the US State Department announced it was “monitoring” her case, risking a diplomatic row with Britain.
Donald Trump’s administration is actively seeking to champion more anti-abortion protesters facing prosecution in the UK in a move that risks a transatlantic rift.
The US State Department is understood to have contacted a pro-life Christian charity asking to speak to campaigners who have suffered from “censorship” of their views.
Jeremiah Igunnubole, Mrs Tossici-Bolt’s barrister, said: “This is unprecedented circumstances. Never before have we seen entirely peaceful conduct being criminalised for nothing other than offering a consensual conversation.
“It’s the first time in modern British history that this has happened. So we, of course, have to go through the judgment and explore all our legal options.”
