Man, 40, who ‘told pal “It’s working, she’s bleeding” after forcing woman to have abortion by drugging drink’ is jailed
A “HEINOUS” man who forced a pregnant woman to miscarry after secretly spiking her drink with abortion drugs has been jailed.
Stuart Worby, 40, then told a friend “it’s working” and “there’s lots of blood” after crushing an abortion-inducing drug into a glass of orange juice.
He also inserted a number of tablets of a second abortion drug inside the victim after using deception to engage in sexual activity with her in August 2022.
Worby then refused to take the woman to hospital for three hours after she began suffering a severe physical reaction.
She was eventually taken to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital the next day, where she miscarried her baby at 15 weeks.
Worby was convicted of assault by penetration and administering poison or using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage following a trial at Norwich Crown Court in October.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Joel Bennathan told him: “You are a selfish man and set about aborting the baby without (the woman) knowing.”
He was jailed for 12 years at the same court today.
A trial earlier heard how the woman had wanted to keep the baby.
But he and friend Wayne Finney had “put their heads together” to see how to induce a miscarriage.
The “cold, callous and calculating” plan was uncovered when the woman discovered a message on Worby’s phone reading: “It’s working, she’s bleeding.”
Upon reading the messages, she realised she had not suffered a spontaneous miscarriage, but instead a “deceitful and planned termination”.
Worby had paid Finney’s girlfriend Nueza Cepeda, 39, to have a medical consultation that resulted in her obtaining mifepristone and misoprostol from a gynaecology centre.
His bank statements revealed he paid £470 for the abortion tablets in London on July 29, 2022.
Cepeda had earlier made a phone call to the gynaecology centre saying she was pregnant, already had a family and wished to terminate the fetus.
Staff at the centre explained to her it is a criminal offence to give the medication to someone else when Cepeda was handed the prescription.
But she met up with Worby and gave him the tablets at the George Hotel in Dereham.
Worby then crushed a tablet of mifepristone into a glass of orange juice being consumed by the woman on the night of August 3, 2022.
He then inserted a number of tablets of misoprostol inside her.
After his victim had suffered the miscarriage and found incriminating texts on his phone, Worby was arrested on August 5, 2022.
Officers discovered an empty pack of Misoprostol in a bin in his bedroom at home, as well as an iphone and a Nokia phone.
The court also heard police took nail clippings from Worby for forensic testing.
These were found to have traces of mifepristone and misoprostol.
A post-mortem examination, including an analysis of chemicals in the baby’s system, found traces of mifepristone.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman said she said she felt she “failed to protect my baby”.
She added: “This pain will never leave me knowing that this baby could have been my only chance to be a mother in this lifetime.
“I haven’t been able to conceive and have another baby.”
The woman said she had “gone from fertility clinic to fertility clinic” and “being a mother was a dream to me”.
After his sentence was read out, Worby asked if he “could say anything”.
When told by the judge that he could not, Worby replied “thanks for your time””and was led to the cells.
Worby was also made subject to a restraining order barring him from contacting the woman indefinitely and was ordered to pay her £10,000.
Cepeda, who admitted supplying an instrument to procure a miscarriage, was sentenced to 22 months in prison suspended for two years.
Finney was found not guilty of intentionally encouraging or assisting in the offence.