Zdenka Yabani: senior MP will ask Home Office to look at abortion crime record over pregnant woman’s suicide

A senior Conservative MP will raise with the Home Office the case of a woman who jumped in front of a train while pregnant, after NationalWorld revealed police had recorded a formal offence of child destruction.

Caroline Nokes, the chair of Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, described the case as “really worrying”, and said she would raise the question of how crime statistics are managed in the case of a pregnant woman’s suicide. 

Child destruction – or “Intentional destruction of a viable unborn child” – is a crime created by the 1929 Infant Life (Preservation) Act. It is one of two laws that can be used in England and Wales to prosecute women for illegally aborting their pregnancies. 

The law criminalises “any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by any wilful act causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother”. The maximum penalty is life in prison. 

Officers from the British Transport Police recorded a crime under the legislation in January 2018, when mother-of-two Zdenka Yabani jumped in front of a train while eight months pregnant. An inquest later heard the 39-year-old had bipolar disorder and had been struggling with her mental health. Official crime records state she could not be prosecuted because she was “too ill”. 

Both Zdenka and the unborn foetus were killed on impact with the high-speed train. BTP said it had had to record a crime following the tragedy because of Home Office rules governing how offences are counted. The Home Office however told us that it is for the individual forces to decide whether to record a crime in such "tragic" cases, and careful consideration is needed.

“It is really worrying that statistics collected in that way are wholly misleading,” Nokes said. “That poor woman ended her own life, such was her desperation. I am very happy to raise with the Home Office the way statistics are collected.”

We have been unable to confirm whether Zdenka’s family had been informed that a crime had been recorded, but women’s mental health charity WISH said “treating a tragic suicide as a criminal act adds unnecessary distress to the grieving family”.

“It is essential that law enforcement agencies handle such sensitive situations with empathy and prioritise the mental well-being of individuals involved,” the charity said. 

There has been strong reaction to the revelation about how police handled Zdenka’s death. Dr Charlotte Proudman, a prominent feminist lawyer, Tweeted: “This woman died as a criminal not a victim.” Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, said the case was “incredibly sad and disturbing”.

Zdenka’s case came to light during a NationalWorld investigation into abortion-related offences. Freedom of Information requests revealed that at least 36 women were investigated between April 2014 and December 2021 on suspicion of ending their own pregnancies. Twenty were investigated under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which criminalises all abortions, while 15 were under the 1929 Act. It was not known what law was used in the 37th case - and the figures are likely an undercount. 

Anybody who assists with an abortion or causes a foetus to die can be prosecuted under the laws, so public data did not previously reveal how often pregnant women specifically are investigated. 

A Home Office spokesperson said: "It is a crime to intentionally cause the death of an unborn child. However, whether or not the crime should be recorded in such tragic circumstances needs to be considered on a case by case basis taking into account the rights of the unborn child, mother and family.”