Man jailed for giving woman abortion with drugs in her orange juice, causing painful miscarriage
A man has been jailed for 12 years after secretly giving a woman abortion drugs, causing her to lose her unborn baby in a painful and long miscarriage.
Stuart Worby, 40, from Dereham in Norfolk, crushed a tablet of the drug mifepristone into a glass of orange juice on the night of 3 August 2022, without the woman's knowledge or consent, the court was told.
He then put a number of tablets of another abortion drug - misoprostol - inside the woman after tricking her into sexual activity.
Worby was sentenced on Friday at Norwich Crown Court, having been found guilty of sexual assault and of administering a poison or using an instrument to procure a miscarriage in a trial that lasted more than two weeks.
The victim, who was 15 weeks pregnant at the time and wanted to keep her baby, immediately had to go to the bathroom to be sick and began bleeding.
She attended the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and after hours of pain and blood loss, she suffered a miscarriage and had to have surgery.
She then found messages on Worby's phone to his friend Wayne Finney to say "It's working" and "There is lots of blood".
It was then the victim realised what she had suffered was "a deceitful and planned termination", said Norfolk Police.
Prosecutor Edmund Vickers KC said it was “quite clear” that the woman “wanted to have the baby”.
In a victim impact statement, read to the court, the woman said she felt she had “failed to protect my baby”.
“This pain will never leave me knowing that this baby could have been my only chance to be a mother in this lifetime,” she said.
“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”.
Worby, of Malthouse Court in Dereham, admitted buying the lethal medication but had denied administering it.
The jury was told he sourced the drugs by persuading another woman to obtain them illegally by pretending they were for her at the doctor.
Nueza Cepeda, 39, of Dereham, admitted supplying the abortion drugs. She was given a suspended sentence of 22 months.
Prosecutor Mr Vickers said Worby’s offence was “deliberate, well-planned and callous”.
He said Worby paid £470 to book an appointment for Cepeda with a gynaecology centre in London.
The judge also made a restraining order, barring Worby from contacting the woman indefinitely, and ordered that he pay her £10,000.
After his sentence was read out, Worby asked if he “could say anything”.
When told by the judge that he could not, Worby said “thanks for your time” and was led to the cells.
Det Insp Duncan Woodhams, from Norfolk Police, said outside court: "I've never seen anything like this crime before. I hope I never have to again.
"I've had 28 years of police experience. It's honestly one of the most horrendous crimes I've ever come across."
He also said: "I wholeheartedly agree with prosecution Mr Vickers who said during the trial that [Worby's] actions were cold, callous and calculating.
"This was a deliberate and well-planned crime in which Worby displayed an extreme level of selfishness."
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