This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old





A doctor who examined a girl suspected of being a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) has told a jury the child may have been pricked or burned by an object the size of a knitting needle.

The consultant paediatrician Lindsey Mackintosh examined the girl in Bristol after her father allegedly admitted that his daughter had undergone a “small” procedure.

Mackintosh told Bristol crown court she found what she believed was a small lesion measuring no more than a couple of millimetres.

She said: “With the previous concern that there had been disclosure that [the girl] may have undergone FGM I was concerned she may have been pricked or had a small burn to her clitoris using a hot, sharp object. This would be type four FGM.”

The defendant, who is 29, denies child cruelty.

The court was told that the father, a private hire driver of Somali origin, allegedly told a customer that his daughter, then six, had undergone a procedure.

He is said to have told the customer, who worked for a charity that campaigns against FGM, that the practice was carried out in his culture to prevent women from “feeling sexy all the time”.

The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, allegedly explained: “I did the small one to my daughter, other people did the big one, I did the small one.” The prosecution has said it does not allege the father carried out the procedure itself.

Police were called and the girl was examined by Mackintosh, the designated doctor for safeguarding in Bristol.

During the examination, the girl’s mother told Mackintosh that her daughter had not undergone FGM. Mackintosh said the girl was shy but spoke good English. Asked if anyone had ever hurt her, she replied: “No.”

But when Mackintosh examined her, she said she saw a “lesion” measuring “a couple of millimetres at most”.

Mackintosh told the jury: “I was concerned that this may represent a form of FGM.” She said she did not believe a blade had been used but thought the girl may have been pricked by a sharp object “potentially something the size of a knitting needle”.

Cross-examined by James Haskell, the defendant’s barrister, Mackintosh said: “The truth is I don’t know how it was caused but I was concerned about the appearance.”

Photographs taken of the alleged injury were sent to Sarah Creighton, a consultant gynaecologist based in London.

Creighton, who runs a clinic to help women who have undergone FGM, told the court that on four pictures there was the “suggestion” of a small lesion. “I thought there was something that needed to be looked at in more detail,” she said.

She examined the girl in London nine weeks after Mackintosh but could not see the lesion. The prosecution has claimed that by this time the lesion had healed.

A second consultant gynaecologist who was called by the defence, Nicholas Morris, told the jury that he had examined the photographs taken by Mackintosh but could not see marks on them. “I didn’t see any lesions in the photographs. I didn’t see anything that concerned me,” he said.

Morris, who set up a clinic to help FGM victims in 1997, said he had never seen a “type four” FGM – the category said to have been inflicted on the girl. Type four FGMs include pricking, cauterising and piercing.

The trial continues.