Background
Mohammad Alazawi, who was not medically qualified, provided a mobile service performing non-therapeutic circumcisions on babies and young children, principally from Muslim families. He used local anaesthetic and a Plastibell device and charged approximately £100 per procedure. The prosecution alleged that he falsely presented himself as a doctor or surgeon, performed procedures in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and unlawfully administered or supplied prescription-only and pharmacy medicines.
Alazawi pleaded guilty to 20 medicines offences. Following a nine-week trial at Southwark Crown Court, a jury convicted him of six fraud offences, seven counts of wounding with intent, one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and other offences. The prosecution advanced two routes to liability for wounding: that fraud about his qualifications invalidated the parents’ consent, and that the unsafe manner of performance made the circumcisions incapable of lawful consent. He received an aggregate sentence of nine years’ imprisonment.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal held that the wounding convictions were unsafe. A false representation about Alazawi’s professional qualifications did not, by itself, negate consent to the nature and quality of the act where the parents knowingly requested a circumcision and the law permits religious circumcision by a person who is not medically qualified. The deception could support the fraud convictions, but it did not automatically transform the intended circumcisions into unlawful woundings.
The alternative direction based on unsafe performance also did not provide a legally sufficient route to liability for wounding with intent merely because a procedure exposed a child to a significant and unnecessary additional risk. The court therefore quashed the seven section 18 convictions while leaving intact the fraud, medicines, and assault convictions. It allowed the sentence appeal and substituted an aggregate term of five years’ imprisonment for the original nine-year sentence.
Key Takeaways
- Religious male circumcision remains a lawful activity in England and Wales and need not be performed by a medically qualified practitioner.
- Fraud about a circumciser’s qualifications may constitute a separate offence without necessarily invalidating parental consent to the circumcision itself.
- Unsafe practice and unlawful administration of medicines can attract criminal liability, but they do not automatically establish intentional wounding by nullifying consent to the procedure.
Why It Matters
The decision draws an important boundary between fraud, medicines regulation, negligent or unsafe practice, and offences of intentional violence. Prosecutors cannot convert an otherwise consented-to circumcision into section 18 wounding solely through deception about qualifications or a broadly framed assessment of additional risk.
The court also highlighted the regulatory gap surrounding non-therapeutic circumcision by non-medical practitioners. Although Alazawi remained criminally responsible for serious deception, medicines offences, and assault, any broader standards governing who may perform circumcisions and under what conditions are matters requiring clear legal or regulatory provision.