‘Mother of FGM girl cast spells on police’

A MOTHER accused of the female genital mutilation of her threeyearold daughter cast ‘spells’ on police and doctors, a court heard yesterday.

The girl’s Ugandan mother and Ghanaian father allegedly used a ‘witch’ to help them carry out the surgery at their filthy flat.

They then instructed their daughter to tell police and social workers she had injured herself on a cupboard door after climbing on to a work surface to get biscuits, the old Bailey heard.

They called emergency services, saying she had fallen. By the time the girl was taken to hospital she had lost a significant amount of blood.

a consultant surgeon found three separate sites of injury but no bruising to indicate a fall. The girl, now five, was said to have told police her parents pinned her down while a woman they called a witch mutilated her. When officers searched the mother’s home in east london, they found cows’ tongues and evidence of spells and curses in the freezer, the jury heard. prosecutor Caroline Carberry QC said the 37yearold mother had an interest in witchcraft. Her extraordinary spells targeted social workers, police in the case and even the director of public prosecutions.

Describing the items found in the kitchen freezer, she said: ‘Two cow tongues, they were bound in wire with nails and a small blunt knife also embedded in them, 40 limes were found and other fruit which when opened contained pieces of paper with names on them. These people were to “shut up” and “freeze their mouths”.’

The girl ‘sustained her injuries by deliberate cutting with a sharp instrument’ when illegal surgery was performed at the mother’s home in the presence of her 43yearold father, who lived nearby, Miss Carberry told the court.

The morning after their daughter was mutilated, the parents – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – exchanged messages in which they discussed casting a spell to ‘silence the police and the doctors’, she said. The court heard that girl told a foster carer: ‘They hold me, the lady she cut me. Blood everywhere.’

The defendants deny carrying out female genital mutilation in august 2017 and failing to protect a girl from risk of FGM. The trial continues.

‘Two cow tongues, wire and nails kept in the freezer’