Married Home Office boss ‘laced mistress’s orange juice to give her miscarriage’

A married Home Office boss laced his mistress’s orange juice with drugs in a bid to give her a miscarriage, a court heard. Darren Burke, 43, allegedly crushed tablets of Mifepristone into Laura Slade’s glass but she did not drink it and found him pouring the liquid down her kitchen sink. Burke, deputy director of the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, denies administering a poison with intent to cause miscarriage. Following his arrest he claimed he bought the pills online…