Court declares miscarriage of justice in landmark female genital mutilation case

New expert evidence led the Court of Appeal to formally recognise a miscarriage of justice.

Their trial was the first of its kind in Ireland and was the subject of an RTÉ documentary broadcast last year. File picture

A couple whose convictions for the female genital mutilation (FGM) of their one-year-old daughter were quashed after they spent two years in prison have had their case formally declared a miscarriage of justice.

Their trial was the first of its kind in Ireland and was the subject of an RTÉ documentary broadcast last year.

At the Court of Appeal on Friday, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said newly discovered facts disclosed in expert reports demonstrated that a miscarriage of justice had occurred.

“We find on the balance of probabilities that the applicants are factually innocent,” he said, “For this reason we grant a certificate pursuant to S9 (1) (a) of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993.” 

The husband and wife became the first people convicted of FGM offences in the history of the State after a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury found them guilty in November 2019 of carrying out an act of female genital mutilation on their daughter at a Dublin address on September 16, 2016. 

Both had pleaded not guilty.

Their convictions were overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2021 after it found the trial had been “unfair” because of “serious and far-reaching inaccuracies” in the translation of the mother’s and father’s testimony to the jury.

A jury at a retrial in 2023 failed to reach a verdict, and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) subsequently withdrew the charges.

The couple, who are originally from a French-speaking region of Africa, later sought to have their quashed convictions formally recognised as a miscarriage of justice.

At a hearing in January, lawyers for the parents said an examination of the child by Swedish FGM expert Professor Birgitta Essen in December 2023 showed that she had never been subjected to the procedure.

The court heard that the DPP withdrew the charges after a new report commissioned by the State “broadly” agreed with Professor Essen’s conclusions.