Home office worker ‘tried to give his mistress an abortion’

A married home office worker accused of drugging his pregnant mistress to give her a miscarriage will face trial next year. Darren Burke, 42, denied unlawfully supplying a poison to procure miscarriage and procuring miscarriage by poison. He allegedly got hold the drug Mifepristone which is typically prescribed by doctors to bring about an abortion during pregnancy and gave it to Laura Slade. Burke, deputy director of the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, appeared for a case management hearing at…