NHS doctor accused of female genital mutilation in test case

A doctor accused of carrying out female genital mutilation on a mother used a model of a woman’s vagina as he took to the stand to defend himself against the allegation.

Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, is standing trial accused of carrying out the procedure at the Whittington Hospital in north London, in the first prosecution of its kind in Britain

He allegedly illegally stitched the young mother back up after she gave birth in November 2012 — re-doing the FGM carried out on her as a six-year-old in Somalia.

But Dharmasena branded the practice “abhorrent” and insisted he only carried out the single stitch because she was “oozing” blood following labour.

He used a model of a woman’s vagina to show jurors the figure-of-eight stitch he sewed and the exhibit was then handed to judge and jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court to expect.

Explaining the brief procedure, which took around 30 seconds, Dharmasena said: “I didn’t contemplate any other suture technique.

“This figure-of-eight suture, the purpose of it is to stop bleeding. In one movement you close off and stop bleeding in the area.”

Taking to the witness stand in a smart suit and thick-rimmed black glasses, Dharmasena said he was resolutely against the practice of female circumcision.

He said: “There is no medical justification for FGM.”

Asked to describe how he felt about the practice in November 2012, he added: “I regarded FGM as an abhorrent practice that doesn’t have any justification in our society.”

The woman, known only as AB, was rushed to hospital in emergency labour, and Dharmasena had to undo the FGM and cut her open to deliver the baby.

Afterwards he sewed the woman up, bringing her two bits of skin together. But jurors have heard she should have been sutured on each side separately.

The doctor, then a junior registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology, said the woman was “insistent” she wanted stitching back up — but denied he was a “puppet” to her demands.

He said that while the woman’s English was not very good, he believed these were her wishes as someone in the delivery room was translating.

Ms Johnson asked: “Was your clinical judgement in respect of the incisions influenced in any way?”

Dharmasena replied: “No.”