 On 14 June 1938, Bourne was arrested after performing an operation without fee at St Mary's Hospital to terminate the pregnancy of six weeks of a 14-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted by five off-duty British soldiers, officers in the Royal Horse Guards, in a London barracks.She had first attended St. Thomas' Hospital, but was sent away on the grounds that as the rapists were officers, “she might be carrying a future prime minister" and "that anyhow girls always lead men on.