Satbal Singh, 41, illegally supplied abortion pills to a couple after the legal timeframe for an abortion, a London court has heard. Mr Singh has now received a sentence of two-and-a-half years.

A court in London has heard that a pregnant woman and her partner conducted an online search for abortion pills in 2018, resulting in an order being placed by the father, beyond the legal limit for an abortion.

The couple had initially contacted an abortion clinic, but they were turned away because the pregnancy was over four weeks beyond the legal limit for an abortion.

Abortion pills, procured on a Mumbai-based website, were posted to the couple from the Hounslow home of Mr Singh.

Evidence of such pills were later discovered at the Gloucestershire couple’s home after the police were notified that the birth never took place.

While Mr Singh has been sentenced for supplying pills to be used with intent to secure an unlawful abortion, the couple – who reportedly issued conflicting accounts about what really happened during the pregnancy – still remain under investigation.

Judge Karen Holt told Mr Singh: “It appears tragically that the baby is the real victim in this case… You must clearly have foreseen that the pills would be taken outside suitable medical care, by someone who themselves may be vulnerable.”

“Abortion pills are not safe or simple”

A SPUC spokesperson said: “Two things are particularly striking about Judge Holt’s comments.

“Firstly, Judge Holt states, rightly, that the unborn baby was the ‘real victim’, if Mr Singh’s pills were indeed the cause of its death. Nevertheless, according to the law, the same baby would not have been held to be the victim had he or she been aborted just four weeks before the couple visited the abortion clinic.

“Indeed, it remains the case that, in law, the difference between a ‘victim’ and a legal killing can be as little as a day. How can this be justified, either scientifically or morally?

“Secondly, Judge Holt rightly condemned Mr Singh for supplying deadly abortion pills ‘to people unknown… in unknown circumstances… outside suitable medical care’.

“While this is true, these ‘circumstances’ differ very little from the current imposition of DIY home abortion by the Government, allowing vulnerable women to procure and take abortion pills remotely and without medical supervision.

“Abortion pills, which are neither safe nor simple, can have devastating consequences for women, as SPUC recently reported on when a 23-year-old student in Argentina died following a legal chemical abortion.

“DIY home abortion puts women at further risk, of infection and even death, as well as increased risk of coercion.

“While it appears that Mr Singh has been justly punished, the Government is just as morally culpable as any other trader of abortion. When will the Government be held accountable?”