AN NHS doctor has been cleared of carrying out female genital mutilation on a
mother in the first trial of its kind in Britain.
Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, had been accused of doing the procedure after the
woman gave birth but was cleared by a jury at Southwark crown court.
Hasan Mohamed, 41 – accused of encouraging him to commit the alleged offence –
was also found not guilty.
FGM is not allowed under hospital policy and has been illegal in the UK since
1985.
It took jurors less than an hour to clear the pair as Dharmasena’s barrister
said the doctor had been “hung out to dry”.
Zoe Johnson QC said he had been forced to pay the “ultimate price”
for hospital failings.
She said: “You might think he has been badly let down through this long
and sorry saga.”
Southwark crown court heard Dr Dharmasena, who was then a junior registrar,
faced the “nightmarish scenario” of discovering a patient was
circumcised only as she went into emergency labour.
After delivering the baby, the 32-year-old then partially re-stitched her
afterwards because she was “oozing” blood.
But he was later told by superiors he should have sutured her on either side
despite receiving no training on how to treat a woman with FGM.
Ali Hussain, representing Hasan Mohamed, labelled the case a “show trial”.
He said: “My client has suffered months of stress and the humiliation and
lost precious time with his two young children.”