THE trial of a woman accused of illegally aborting her baby collapsed due to “appalling and sloppy” reporting by the BBC, a judge said today.

Prosecutors alleged that Sophie Harvey, who was 19 at the time, took medication to illegally abort the child when she was 28 weeks pregnant.

While Ms Harvey and her boyfriend Elliot Benham accepted that they had purchased abortion pills, the defendant maintains that she did not take them and gave birth to a stillborn child.