A 22-year-old woman accused of procuring a poison to abort her child shortly after the first Covid lockdown is due to appear before a judge this week.

Bethany Cox is the fourth woman to be prosecuted in the last eight months for allegedly carrying out her own abortion, with only three trials in the 160 years before that, according to campaigners.

Cox, of Eaglescliffe in Stockton-on-Tees, appeared before Teesside magistrates court last month charged with child destruction and procuring her own miscarriage “by poison/use of instrument”.

She was charged under section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which makes it an offence for a woman to unlawfully procure her own abortion.

The first charge reads: “On 06/07/2020 at Stockton, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by a wilful act, namely administering drugs to procure abortion, contrary to section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, caused the child to die before it had an existence independent of its mother.”

The second charge reads: “Between 02/07/2020 and 07/07/2020 at Stockton, being a woman with child, unlawfully administered to yourself a poison or other noxious thing, with intent to procure your own miscarriage.”