Outrageous. Yet utterly predictable. The CPS will do everything it can to avoid bringing a prosecution for MGM, and had the mother approved of the procedure, it would still have been illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. No exemptions to the law are allowed for legal or cultural considerations. The arrest of Dr Balvinder Mehat and the boy’s father and paternal grandmother on suspicion of committing (and conspiring to commit) Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent (maximum sentence – life imprisonment) was nothing more than a publicity stunt, following embarrassment at the CPS and Nottingham Police over their utter incompetence in the case. From the article:
According to the British Medical Association, male circumcision in the UK is generally assumed to be lawful provided there is valid consent.
It is WRONGLY ‘generally assumed to be lawful’.
The light at the end of the tunnel in this case is the outstanding lawyer seeking to bring a prosecution, Saimo Chahal QC. From the article:
Saimo Chahal QC (Hon) is appealing the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision and has written a 24-page letter, “outlining numerous defects in their decision-making process and evaluation of this case”.
She told the BBC: “The decision lacks any semblance of a considered and reasoned decision and is flawed and irrational.”
If prosecutors do not review their decision within 14 days, she said, the mother will “be obliged to take the matter before the administrative court for a determination of these very important issues, which need to be resolved not only for her personal case but also for the wider public interest issues that the case raises”.
Justice for Men & Boys 
The police have now clarified that an earlier press release contained an error. It was in fact the boy’s father and grandmother who were arrested, not the grandparents.
LikeLike
Thanks for this, I have corrected the piece. The police error is surely just a symptom of the disinterest they have in the matter.
LikeLike
Thank God for people like Chahal QC. If necessary, a crowd-funded private prosecution?
LikeLike
Well I suspect the CPS turned this down because they’d be “s….g” themselves on the multicultural ramifications. They must fear a double “whammy” of being both “anti semitic” (which got a German attempt to outlaw infant MGM watered down) and “islamaphobic”. I hope the QC gets a sensible Judge unswayed by the “cultural” issues for the Judicial Review.
LikeLike
The CPS have already shot themselves in the foot by acknowledging that, had Mehat known the mother did not consent, this could have constitued an assault. It is well-established in case law that no one can consent to assault. Beyond the current case, the CPS is now going to have to argue how an assault can suddenly become not-an-assault, if ‘consent’ has been obtained. It’s a mess. For them.
LikeLike
According to the article, “The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) “deemed that there would be no realistic prospect of conviction”.”
I think the truth is the opposite. Due to the very unique situation of this case, I think that they realized a conviction was almost a certainty; and this is the reason they decided not to press charges. They don’t want to set a legal precedent where non-medical “male circumcision” is deemed grievous bodily harm and assault; if this happened how would the UK be able to continue to allow Male Genital Mutilation?
Perhaps a private prosecution should be considered, I think that in this particular case a private prosecution would have a very good chance sucsess.
LikeLike
True Chris. But I think establishing Mehat’s criminality is the priority at the moment. The CPS is used to getting its own way, but, as arguably the UK’s most notorious Human Rights lawyer, so is Saimo Chahal QC. This is a ‘clash of the Titans’ and could well set precedent. It’s not over yet, it’s just begun.
LikeLike
I thought the law was clear on it being the victims right to insist on prosecution in cases of violent crime. (GBH or above) and the loss of a body part and the use of a weapon would make this GBH.
Are the CPS trying to pass it off as a lesser ofence to facilitate not pressing charges?
LikeLike