A Cairns couple charged over a home abortion has been found not guilty.
A Cairns District Court jury took less than an hour to find Tegan Simone Leach, 21, and her partner Sergie Brennan not guilty of charges of procuring an abortion and supplying drugs to procure an abortion following a three day trial.
The couple were charged after police found empty blister packets of abortion drugs RU486 and Misoprostol during a search of their home on an unrelated matter in February last year.
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They admitted in police interviews that Leach took the pills, imported by Brennan's family in the Ukraine, because they were not ready to have a child.
Under Queensland law, abortion is illegal except to protect the mother's life or her physical or mental wellbeing.
However, in his final directions to the jury, Judge Bill Everson said they had to be satisfied the drugs were noxious to Leach's health, rather than the foetus.
