COLERAINE, Northern Ireland (BP) – A retired Baptist pastor is the latest Christian convicted for religious activity in an abortion buffer zone in the United Kingdom, this time for holding a church service on the outskirts of a zone.
Clive Johnston, 78, was convicted May 7 on two charges of violating a safe access zone by holding an open-air religious service outside Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, in July 2024, BBC and others reported. Johnston was fined the equivalent of about $613 after preaching a sermon from the especially cherished Scripture John 3:16, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (CSB).
Johnston is at least the second Christian in the U.K. convicted and fined for violating a buffer zone. In October 2024, Adam Smith-Conner, an Army veteran and father of three, was found guilty of silently praying in an abortion buffer zone in Dorset County, England. Smith-Conner was fined the equivalent of $11,700, his attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom UK reported.
Johnston, the former president of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, is expected to appeal the decision, his attorneys at The Christian Institute reported.
“This is a dark day for Christian freedom,” The Christian Institute quoted Johnston after the verdict. “We held a small, open air Sunday service near a hospital. We made no reference whatsoever to the issue of abortion. And yet the buffer zones law is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offence. And at 78 years of age I find myself, for the first time, convicted of a crime.”
Abortion buffer zones have been in place across the U.K. and Wales since October 2024, typically establishing a 150-meter boundary around abortion clinics and allowing unlimited monetary fines, according to gov.uk.
In such zones, individuals are prohibited from influencing a person’s decision to access or facilitate abortions, obstructing clinic access and harassing, alarming or distressing those entering the facility. Silent prayers, anti-abortion protests and shouts are explicitly prohibited.
“I know it was an unusual place to hold an open-air service but that was the point,” Johnston said after his conviction. “There shouldn’t be any public spaces in Northern Ireland where you can be prosecuted and convicted simply for preaching the Gospel.”
Christian Institute Director Ciarán Kelly said Johnston’s conviction is a misuse of U.K. law.
“Despite assurances to the contrary when this legislation was being considered, we now see that an already controversial and deeply unjust law has now been selectively applied to criminalize Gospel preaching,” Kelly said in a Christian Institute press release. “This is creeping censorship. If the ruling stands it will represent a shocking new restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of speech, so we will be helping Clive to consider the options for appeal.”
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), which established a legal defense fund to assist those charged with such offenses in the U.K., has decried such convictions, referencing in particular the Smith-Conner conviction.
“I have a great deal of compassion for Christians that are told to be silent, or threatened, or arrested or whatever the situation is, and are looking for help,” BGEA legal counsel Justin Arnot told Baptist Press in August 2025 after the fund was established. “I mean, that really resonates with me. And so it’s a real privilege to be able to have a role, that we can have some part in bringing help into that picture.”
Southern Baptist congressmen, including U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a member of Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, Texas; U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), a member of Prince Avenue Baptist Church in Bogart, Ga., and U.S. Rep. Clyde Weber (R-TX), a member of Sagemont Church in Houston, were among a handful of signatories to a letter advocating against such buffer zones in the U.K. in 2024.
Amid several legal challenges in America, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to reconsider its 2000 ruling in Hill v. Colorado, stating that a nearly identical law did not prohibit free speech as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, but rather regulated places where some speech may occur.
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