Two London doctors are facing the threat of prosecution over an allegedly botched operation on a woman’s genitals.
The unnamed doctors have been questioned by the Met after a complaint from a woman who attended a private clinic in the capital for a labia reduction procedure.
She is understood to have been left with permanent damage after more was removed in the “designer vagina” surgery than expected.
Police have sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, which is examining whether to bring charges under legislation banning female genital mutilation.
It prohibits any mutilation of a woman or girl’s genitals, including cosmetic procedures, unless there is a medical or psychological reason for surgery.
The new case follows the conviction of surgeon Ian Paterson for intentionally wounding patients with “extensive, life-changing operations” carried out for no justifiable medical reason.
Nottingham crown court was told that Paterson, 59, “played god” with women’s bodies and persuaded patients to have mastectomies at private hospitals in the West Midlands by inventing or exaggerating cancer risks. He is due to be sentenced this month.
In the new case, one of five FGM investigations awaiting charging decisions by the CPS, prosecutors are understood to believe that there is sufficient evidence of harm to secure a conviction.
They are deciding, however, whether it is in the public interest to bring charges when the alleged victim was an adult who initially consented to the procedure.
Female genital mutilation has been illegal in this country since 1985 but there have been no convictions. The only prosecution, of an NHS doctor in London and another man, resulted in not guilty verdicts in 2015.
Prosecutors considered a Scotland Yard file on another cosmetic case involving Professor David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at London’s Maudsley and Priory hospitals, and surgeon Dr Joe Daniels, in which a 33-year-old woman’s clitoris was removed.
They decided not to bring charges after Professor Veale argued that the surgery was necessary for the woman’s mental health because of her aversion to the previous appearance of her genitals.
