A Northern Ireland woman who was prosecuted for buying abortion pills online for her teenage daughter has been acquitted after reform of the region's laws.

A jury at Belfast Crown Court was directed to find the woman not guilty.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had faced two counts of procuring and supplying the abortion drugs with the intent to procure a miscarriage, contrary to the UK's 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

But the 19th-century legislation no longer applied from midnight on Monday when abortion, along with same-sex marriage, was decriminalised in Northern Ireland.

The prosecution offered no evidence on Wednesday morning.

Judge David McFarland said that although the law had been repealed, he was required to proceed with the legal formalities and swear in a jury.

Once the eight men and four women were sworn in, a prosecution lawyer confirmed to the court that the prosecution would be offering no evidence.

The judge then directed the jury to find the woman not guilty.

After the verdict, the mother said in a statement: "My emotions are all over the place and I find it hard to put into words how I am feeling.

"For the first time in six years I can go back to being the mother I was, without the weight of this hanging over me every minute of every day and I can finally move on with my life.

"I am so thankful that the change in the law will allow other women and girls to deal with matters like this privately in their own family circle."

Her solicitor Jemma Conlon, of Chambers Solicitors, said: "It is a day that she will forever remember and a day that allows her to finally move on with her life privately without anguish and criminalisation."

Main image: Solicitor Jemma Conlon reading out her client's statement to the media outside Belfast Crown Court | Image: Liam McBurney/PA Wire/PA Images