Home Office boss who spiked mistresses’ drink with abortion drug facing jail

Darren Burke was remanded into custody and informed to anticipate a jail sentence subsequent month (Image: PA/Central Information)

A senior civil servant is dealing with a prolonged jail spell after being convicted of spiking his pregnant mistresses’ drink with an abortion medicine.

Darren Burke was taken into custody after a jury discovered him responsible of placing a crushed capsule in a glass of orange juice, regardless of his supposed sufferer repeatedly saying she needed to maintain the child.

The 43-year-old tried to speak Laura Slade, with whom he had been having an affair for 5 years, right into a termination after she fell pregnant.

He repeatedly despatched her messages attempting to influence her to get an abortion and despatched hyperlinks to clinics.

When that method failed, he laced a glass of orange juice with mifepristone in an effort to induce an abortion throughout a go to to her flat on December 4, 2020.

Ms Slade suspected one thing was flawed and refused to drink it, earlier than locking herself within the lavatory the place she observed white residue on the glass.

She beforehand informed the courtroom she had ‘an immediate intestine feeling one thing was not proper’ when Burke supplied to carry a Starbucks drink the day earlier than, one thing he had by no means carried out.

On the day of the spiking, she stated he appeared ‘very flustered, strolling between the entrance room and the kitchen’.

The senior civil servant had been conducting a five-year affair with Laura Slade (Image: Central Information)

The mother-of-two suffered an unrelated miscarriage weeks in a while Christmas Day.

Burke was beforehand suspended from his position as a deputy director for the emergency providers cellular communications programme on the House Workplace.

He denied acquiring the drug with intent and making an attempt to manage it to obtain a miscarriage.

Burke, from Windsor, Berkshire, claimed he had crushed up the abortion tablets after shopping for them on-line and flushed them down the sink when it grew to become clear Ms Slade was decided to maintain the child.

A jury at Isleworth Crown Court docket discovered him responsible of the second rely, whereas the primary will lie on file after the jury failed to succeed in a verdict.

Burke was informed to anticipate a ‘sentence of quick imprisonment of some size’ on June 16 and was taken into custody.

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