A U.K. veteran who was recently charged for praying outside an abortion clinic in the U.K. warned his fellow countrymen and Americans that if they don’t stand up against attacks on free speech, "our children" could be "put in prison" for having Christian, pro-life or other culturally unacceptable beliefs.
Adam Smith-Connor, a British father of two who spent 20 years in the British military, spoke to Fox News Digital Wednesday about his ongoing legal defense against charges that he violated a legal "buffer zone" near an abortion clinic by silently praying there.
Smith-Connor, along with Irish Barrister and legal counsel for ADF UK Lorcan Price, told the outlet that the defendant had been charged with a "thought crime" and warned that such direct attacks on free speech and individual in the U.K. could spread like a "cancer" and oppress all of Britain and the western world including America.
"Once we break through this glass ceiling… and allow the state to dictate what we think and what conversations we have in certain areas, I guarantee that that will creep. Those zones will get bigger. They will go onto the high street. It will encompass different areas of life," Smith-Connor declared.
Smith-Connor’s legal predicament began when he was approached by local authorities while praying for the victims of abortion, including his own son, near an abortion clinic in Bournemouth, England last November.
According to the Afghanistan war veteran and physiotherapist, he was "approached by some officers – not police officers but Bournemouth Council officers – who have certain powers where they asked me what I was doing there. I said I was praying."
Connor-Smith noted that once he described the content of his prayer – telling them it was for his son – "that for them was grounds to say that I was breaching the PSPO [Public Spaces Protection Order]."
"So In other words, by virtue of what I was thinking at that moment, that was grounds to say that I was breaching it. They asked me to leave the area. I said they didn’t have the power to do that, since nobody has the power to control what I think in any particular place. And because I refused to leave, they said therefore I was breaching and I could be issued with a fine."
Connor-Smith added that he did receive the fine and refused to pay based on what he believed were absurd reasons behind it.
He said that for some time he never heard back from legal authorities about refusing the fine, so he and ADF UK believed that the Bournemouth Council had dropped the citation.
Though, once the legal group posted a press release proclaiming that the case had been dropped, the council summoned Connor-Smith to court.
He told Fox News Digital, "They raised the summons and summoned me to court with only about two- or three-weeks’ notice, which I appeared on the 9th of August where I pleaded not guilty to breaching the PSPO."
Connor-Smith also noted that during a previous encounter with police officers – not Bournemouth Council authorities – at the same clinic, they told him that him standing there praying silently was not breaking the law.
Price explained a bit about Connor-Smith’s charge of violating the PSPO, stating, "What he was engaged in – as he has said and he has done on a number of occasions – was silent prayer. And the council officials, the local authority, decided that was in breach of an extraordinarily wide order that covers what they call a PSPO, or really what is a buffer zone or a censorship zone around the abortion clinic."
The legal counsel expressed that these buffer zones, which are intended to prevent harassment of clinic patients, are "about the size of an American football stadium," and noted that there are an "extraordinarily wide series of things that are prohibited within that zone, including as we’ve now discovered according to the council, silent prayerful activity."
Price added, "So as Adam said, this is a clearly a breach of human rights law in this jurisdiction and also the longstanding rights and liberties connected to the constitution of this country, where public places really, allow people to gather and express a view. And that’s just why we think that this legislation, not just in Adam’s case but in many other cases across the United Kingdom, is so harmful and so destructive to these longstanding rights."
Talking to The Washington Times, Rachael Clarke, chief of staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, decried Mr. Smith-Conner: "This is essentially a stunt designed to provoke arguments in this way because ultimately, he is not a local person" in the Bournemouth area." She added, "He is not doing it because he believes that this is what he needs to do. He’s chosen to go there because he knows there is a local ban on it."
While talking to Fox News Digital, Connor-Smith warned of the threat that these laws will pose to individual liberty and free speech, not just in Great Britain, but in the U.S. and across the west.
He said, "But it is chilling because this is like a cancer that’s gonna metastasize and grow across the west. And America, and Britain before America, we’re the beacon at the top of the hill. We’re the light at the top of the hill that shines and is a beacon of freedom across the western world and across the world."
"You’re not gonna get this in China or Russia," he continued, adding, "those countries don’t have that history of respecting individual freedoms. If we lose it here, that has profound repercussions across the world. And if America loses it, then we are in serious, serious trouble in the western world."
Posing a timely question about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the west’s stance against Russian President Vladimir Putin, he asked, "How can we stand up against tyrannical nations when we are ourselves are arresting people for prayer?"
"If we don’t have freedom in our nation, then how can we go to other nations and start dictating to them about freedom? It’s just unbelievable," he added.
He referenced his own children, asking, "If we don’t stand now, if people aren’t’ prepared to find themselves in court, to stand up against this then how much worse is it going to be for our children?"
Providing one final warning, Connor-Smith declared, "If we don’t make this stand now, my children could find themselves in prison simply for being pro-life and that’s no exaggeration."
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