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Doctors on trial for FGM surgery during childbirth (20 January 2015)

Date: 20/01/2015
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Doctors on trial for FGM surgery during childbirth

A doctor on trial for female genital mutilation (FGM) has denied one charge of carrying out the procedure on a woman, after she gave birth at the Whittington Hospital in north London.

BBC News reports that junior registrar Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, from Ilford in Essex is at the centre of what is thought to be the first prosecution for FGM in the UK.

A colleague of Dr Dharmasena – Hasan Mohamed, 41 – denies encouraging and abetting the offence.

The court heard that the woman had undergone FGM as a six-year-old child in Somalia – but before she gave birth, Dr Dharmasena had to perform corrective surgery on her to rectify the FGM injury she had received as a youngster.

However, it is alleged that once she had delivered her child, Dr Dharmasena – encouraged by Hasan Mohamed – in effect carried out a second FGM procedure to her.

In the UK, FGM is illegal and carries a maximum jail sentence of 14 years.

Southwark Crown Court heard that while in labour, the woman – who cannot be named for legal reasons – suffered injury when her FGM stitches tore.

Dr Dharmasena – a junior registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology – sewed her back up, but removed the stitches again once she had given birth.

The prosecution told the court that Dr Dharmasena had done so because of Mr Mohamed's “insistence or encouragement”.

The court was told that FGM was “very dangerous for a woman's health and psychological well-being”.

“It can lead to severe health problems and – in some cases – to death. FGM causes gynaecological, urological and obstetric problems in women, chronic pain and sexual dysfunction.

“It increases the risk of death in childbirth to both mother and baby,” the court was told.

The woman at the centre of the cases had previously given birth. However, when a nurse at the Whittington Hospital saw that Dr Dharmasena had restitched the woman’s FGM operation site after she had delivered her child, she advised him that FGM in the UK was illegal.

The hospital trust had launched an investigation a few weeks after the incident.

The court heard that the woman had already been exposed to the risks of FGM at the age of six when she first underwent the procedure – and the restitching of the wound would not have exposed her to the same risks.

The prosecution, said, however, that the procedure should not have been carried out by Mr Dharmasena “unless medically necessary”.

Dr Dharmasena said initially that he had carried out the procedure because he thought the woman wanted him to. However, ten months after the incident he suggested he had done it because it was medically justified.

Dr Dharmasena denies one count of carrying out female genital mutilation.

Hasan Mohamed denies one count of aiding or abetting an FGM procedure – and one count of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.
The trial continues.

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