Babies wrongly included in FGM victim data
CONTROVERSIAL statistics on the number of British victims of female genital mutilation are being falsely inflated, it can be revealed today.
The NHS has admitted that some doctors are wrongly including newborn babies in the figures if their mothers have undergone the banned practice.
A footnote to the statistics admits: ‘We are aware that babies have been recorded in the dataset in error, and are working with the affected organisations to delete these records.’
NHS Digital, the health statistics body, admitted it did not know how many babies had been wrongly added to the figures. A spokesman said: ‘We are unable to verify which incidents have been recorded in error. We have included the caveat as a warning that there may be some data quality issues with the published figures and that the numbers should be treated with caution.’
Last night former health visitor Brid Hehir, who has written about the ‘evangelism’ of anti-FGM campaigners, said: ‘After all the training and awareness-raising and data collection, there is nothing to suggest that we have an FGM problem in this country, let alone an epidemic.’
The latest news comes after it was disclosed that almost all FGM cases performed in this country were actually legal piercings carried out on adults.
Between April 2015 and September 2017, a total of 14,250 individual patients were recorded with FGM. But detailed analysis shows that just 57 victims had the practice performed in the UK. And of those, 84 per cent were legal genital piercings.
Fresh doubts were raised over the prevalence of FGM in Britain after the collapse of a second prosecution. A Bristol cab driver was put on trial for child cruelty last month after a passenger claimed he had admitted his daughter had been cut.
But a judge halted the ‘deeply troubling’ case after saying witness Sami Ullah’s evidence was ‘inconsistent’ and there was no medical proof. The MoS then revealed investigating officer DCI Leanne Pook is a trustee of the antiFGM charity where Mr Ullah worked and was friends with him.
Police say no complaints have been made about the officer and the CPS said it was not reviewing its handling of the case.