File photo of the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin city. Image: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie File photo of the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin city. Image: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie A MAN ACCUSED of carrying out female genital mutilation on his young daughter at their family home in Dublin has said he does not agree with the practice.
They claim their daughter sustained her injuries after falling on a toy, something that was disputed by doctors who examined the girl after she presented at hospital.Solicitor John Byrne, prosecuting, read a record of interviews carried out by gardaí with the accused man on 22 and 23 September 2016. The practice refers to the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.
During the interview, the court heard, gardaí asked the man if he would support FGM if it wasn’t illegal here. “No, I am aware of the consequences on the human being afterwards,” the man replied.The couple claim that their daughter sustained her injuries when she fell onto a toy while not wearing a nappy. The man told gardaí that on the day of the alleged incident his wife was washing her hands in the bathroom after cleaning their daughter’s nappy.
“She screamed, I went to pick her up and calm her down, I thought she hit the wall,” he said, adding that she was crying. A paediatric surgeon, Professor Thambipillai Sri Paran, carried out a procedure to stop the bleeding. Paran, who gave evidence last Wednesday, believed that the injury the girl sustained was non-accidental. The head of her clitoris had been removed.The toy the girl is alleged to have fallen on has been shown in court on a number of occasions. It is an activity centre with a steering wheel and other protruding objects.Related Reads 21.11.
“The story didn’t match the injury that I saw,” Paran said, stating: “I felt that this is not a crush injury, if you fall onto something it will crush.” Tissue would typically hang loose if it was crushed and this was not the case in this instance, he told the court.
Circumcision: the paradigm parental betrayal of their children bordering on the satanic.