A father describing himself as a moderate Muslim has denied subjecting his six-year-old daughter to female genital mutilation after insisting it was against his religion.
The 29-year-old allegedly sparked the court case himself after talking to a passenger in his Uber about his girl.
Unbeknown to the defendant, the passenger was an anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) campaigner and used the taxi app’s feedback service to report the Somali asylum seeker to the police.
Bristol Crown Court has been told the father, a taxi driver from inner-city Bristol, and the girl’s mother both deny that she has been exposed to female genital mutilation (FGM).
While it is not believed the father did the mutilation himself, he is accused of allowing it to happen.
Uber’s feedback service was used to identify the driver before he was reported to police (file)
The 29-year-old was making small talk with charity worker Sami Ullah he was driving when the conversation turned to FGM and he revealed his seven-year-old daughter had a ‘small cut.’
After the 10-minute journey, Mr Ullah, a junior trustee for the charity Integrate, used the app’s feedback service to identify the Somalian driver before reporting him to police.
Officers questioned him and his three young daughters were examined. The oldest, aged seven, was found to have a ‘small lesion,’ classed as type 4 FGM.
The father, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, is not thought to have carried out the painful procedure himself, but allowed it to happen, Bristol Crown Court heard.
He has been charged with child cruelty offences over the injuries, allegedly inflicted between June 27, 2009, and May 26, 2016. He denies the charges.
The court heard the father picked up Mr Ullah from Temple Meads station in Bristol on March 9, 2016, and agreed to take him to the charity’s offices 10 minutes away.
He started a conversation with his passenger and asked what he had been doing with his day.
Mr Ullah was a junior trustee for charity Integrate and asked the driver if he knew what FGM was. When he still did not understand, Mr Ullah used the Somali word.
The driver responded by making a symbol with his hand as he held onto the steering wheel, and said: ‘You mean cutting?’, the court was told.
Giving evidence, Mr Ullah said: ‘He then said that it was very wrong and I agreed with him. Then he said ‘I did the small one to my daughter. Other people did the big one but I did the small one.’
When Mr Ullah asked the driver if he knew it was illegal, he said it was ‘custom and tradition’, adding: ‘Some people did it and some people don’t.’
Mr Ullah told the court: ‘He asked me ‘do you know why we do it?’ and said ‘it’s so women don’t feel sexy all the time.’
The girl was examined by a consultant paediatrician, who discovered what she described as a ‘small lesion’ measuring between 2-3mm on the her genitalia.
In a police interview, the man said: ‘She never had any FGM. I’m sure because she has because from her birth up to now – I was present. How can I be responsible when nothing happened?’
When asked why he did not want his daughter to have FGM, he replied ‘personal reasons’.
‘I don’t want my daughter to have any side effects of FGM,’ he said.
‘It is against the religion so I don’t want anything to do with FGM. It is not religion, it is cultural. Some people believe in tradition – that it has to be performed, and some not.’
The man said he had left the civil war in Somalia in 2004 and came to live with his wife in Bristol.
‘What Somali people believe when they are in Somalia and what they believe here are totally different,’ he said.
‘It is a different mentality.’
He described himself as a ‘moderate’ Muslim, who attended the mosque, and added that he interacted with people of all backgrounds through his job as a taxi driver.
‘You treat everyone as a human being – equal, your religion says you have to respect everyone and that’s how I see it,’ he told police.
‘The Koran is against FGM. This tradition mentality of FGM is believed by ignorant people or people who do not have faith.
‘I don’t know anyone who practices it. I never had any plan to do it to anyone.’
The man said he did not speak about FGM, as it was ‘not polite to discuss private things’.
He told police that he found out his wife had been subjected to FGM when she was younger, but only after they had got married.
Bristol Crown Court (pictured) was told the father allowed the painful procedure to happen
He said some women who had undergone FGM suffered from problems with menstruation and child birth, though his wife had not.
He denied speaking to passenger Sami Ullah about the practice during a 10-minute journey from Bristol Temple Meads to the Integrate charity office in Bristol in March 2016.
Mr Ullah, who worked at the charity, claimed the defendant had told him: ‘I did the small one to my daughter. Other people – they do the big one but I did the small one.’
He also alleged that the defendant said: ‘Do you know why we do it? So women don’t feel sexy all the time.’
When asked about the conversation, the father told police: ‘I didn’t say that. He is a liar. I am shocked and surprised about it.’
The girl is alleged to have been subjected to Type 4 FGM, potentially by being pricked or burned.
The defendant denies one charge of cruelty to a child under the age of 16 and the trial continues.
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