Senior Home Office boss Darren Burke found guilty of spiking mistress' drink to cause miscarriage

A senior Home Office civil servant has been found guilty of spiking his pregnant mistress’s orange juice in a bid to cause a miscarriage.

Married father-of-one Darren Burke, 43, a deputy director for the emergency services mobile communications programme at the Home Office, crushed up an abortion pill and put it in Laura Slade’s drink at her flat, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

A jury was told how he earlier encouraged the mother-of-two to terminate the pregnancy and sent her links to an abortion clinic after she fell pregnant during the course of their five-year affair.

She refused to drink the glass of orange juice, which was allegedly laced with mifepristone, a medication used to induce an abortion, on December 4 2020, but suffered an unconnected miscarriage weeks later, the court heard.

Burke, from Windsor, Berkshire, claimed he had crushed up the abortion tablets and flushed them down the sink when it became clear Ms Slade was determined to keep the baby.

He denied obtaining the drug with intent and attempting to administer it to procure a miscarriage.

A jury on Tuesday found him guilty of the second count but is still deliberating on the first count.

The trial continues.