Parents accused of the female genital mutilation (FGM) of their three-year-old daughter planned to cast spells to “silence” police and social workers, a court has heard.

The east London couple allegedly enlisted a “witch” to take a scalpel to the girl before preparing “curses” to cover up the botched procedure.

Forty limes containing the names of police officers, social workers and doctors were found along with cows' tongues wrapped in wire at the home of the girl’s mother, heard the Old Bailey, where the pair are on trial.

They were intended to “shut up” the people named and “freeze their mouths”, according spells found during a police search, prosecutor Caroline Carberry told the court.

The girl’s Ugandan mother, 37, and Ghanaian father, 43, allegedly exchanged messages discussing the spells as their daughter lay injured in hospital following the abuse.

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Jurors heard the parents got an older woman, who they referred to as a “witch”, to mutilate their daughter on 28 August, 2017.

After she began bleeding heavily, they took her to hospital, where they told medics she had sustained her injuries falling from a work surface on to a cupboard door “while trying to get some biscuits”.

During a 999 call, the mother claimed her daughter “fell on the metal" part of a cupboard door and it had "ripped her private parts”. She told a police officer her daughter was not wearing underwear when it happened.

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Police were contacted by hospital staff the following day after a consultant surgeon had operated on the girl to repair the damage.

During surgery on 28 August he “found three separate sites of injury" and “no bruising or swelling” of her genitals or thighs. The surgeon holds the opinion the girl was probably cut with a scalpel, Ms Carberry said.

He suspected she was as victim of Type 2 female genital mutilation, which involves the “mutilation of the clitoris and removal of the labia minora”, the court heard.

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Ms Carberry told the jury that by the time the girl was taken to Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone the same day, she had “lost a significant amount of blood as a result of the injuries they had delivered and inflicted on her”.

Ms Carberry said the girl, now nearly five, was later taken in by a foster carer and admitted she had been told to lie about what happened.

“She told her foster carer that a woman cut her while her parents held her,” the prosecutor said. “She told her foster carer that her parents had told her to say that she had fallen. She later told police that her parents called this woman a ‘witch’ and that her parents held her while the witch cut her.”

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The couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, both deny charges of FGM and failing to prevent a girl from risk of genital mutilation.

It is estimated that half of FGM procedures are carried out on girls between birth and the age of five, the jury was told.

The “highly risky” procedures can cause bleeding, severe pain, shock and susceptibility to infection, with long-term impacts including gynaecological problems, reduced sexual enjoyment, higher risk pregnancies and mental health problems.