Mike Buchanan outside the Justice Centre, the home of Nottingham Magistrates’ Court.

Will justice be done?

Two days ago I travelled to Nottingham Magistrates’ Court with Tim Alford, a local intactivist, to deposit papers for my private prosecution of Nottingham-based Dr Balvinder Mehat, in connection with his circumcision of a three-month-old boy in 2013. For reasons concerning the alleged lack of maternal consent – an irrelevance, as parents cannot legally give consent for their children to be inflicted with non-therapeutic bodily harm – the case made it into the national newspapers, and he was arrested by the police on suspicion of inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent, a crime carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Sadly, but predictably, the CPS declined to press the charge, so he was spared a trial.

We understand Mehat will be appearing before a General Medical Council tribunal in the autumn, in connection with the case.

After taking legal advice, we decided to opt for the lesser charge of Actual Bodily Harm.

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