Ex-doctor jailed over illegal circumcision service

A former doctor has been jailed for five years and seven months after admitting he caused "painful cruelty to children" by running a mobile circumcision service.

Mohammad Siddiqui, 58, from Birmingham, was a practising doctor at the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust when he started visiting homes to carry out circumcisions for money.

He was suspended and later struck off the General Medical Council (GMC) register but continued the circumcisions, which "ignored" basic hygiene rules.

Siddiqui pleaded guilty last October to 25 charges, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and cruelty to a person under 16.

The charges related to offences committed across the south of England and the West Midlands - including in Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Berkshire, Birmingham, Worcestershire and London.

Some of his procedures left the children "screaming" in agony, Inner London Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

They also lead to a number of young children having to be taken to hospital, including one boy who "almost died", the court was told.

During the sentencing, victim impact statements from the families of a number of children were read out.

One said: "There can be an inbuilt deference towards those perceived as possessing high social status, such as doctors."

"All of this leads to a power imbalance that has enabled Siddiqui to act so brazenly and without regard for the people he is there to serve," they added.

Another said Siddiqui "knew what he was doing wrong" and should have "known better".

Between June 2012 and November 2013 Siddiqui ran a private mobile circumcision service and sourced anaesthetic while working in paediatric surgery at the NHS trust.

He travelled around the UK performing non-therapeutic male circumcisions - meaning there was no clinical reason for the procedure - on patients up to the age of 14.

The court previously heard how Siddiqui had used a rusty medical instrument to circumcise children and gave insufficient pain relief.

One tool had a "rusty, serrated" edge while others had not been properly sterilised, prosecutors said.

Siddiqui carried out circumcisions at clients' homes "as quickly as possible to maximise profits", prosecutor Ben Douglas-Jones KC told the court.

He said the defendant "cut corners" and "caused unnecessary pain, suffering, cruelty and risk".

In 2015, Siddiqui was struck off the GMC register after a panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found him guilty of failures in performing the procedure in the homes of four babies.

But he continued his service because non-therapeutic male circumcision is unregulated and not required to be carried out by a medical practitioner.

Investigator Damon Kennard, from Hampshire police, said Siddiqui "appeared entirely indifferent to the risk and suffering he was subjecting children to and in so doing betrayed the trust parents had placed in him to conduct a safe and sanitary circumcision".

Anja Hohmeyer, from the Crown Prosecution Service, added: "Siddiqui practised these circumcising acts in an unsafe and unsanitary environment and so meted out painful cruelty to children leaving them with emotional and physical scars."

"He showed a complete disregard for the impact of his actions on his victims, families, and communities," she said.

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