Former Doctor Pleads Guilty to Charges Related to Unsafe Circumcision Service

A former medical practitioner has admitted causing “painful cruelty to children” through the operation of a mobile circumcision service. Mohammad Siddiqui, 58, from Birmingham, was a practising doctor at the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust when he began visiting homes to perform circumcisions. He was suspended and subsequently removed from the General Medical Council (GMC) register by a medical practitioners tribunal, yet he continued the circumcisions, a practice that “ignored” basic hygiene rules. On Tuesday, Siddiqui pleaded guilty to 25 charges brought against him, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and cruelty to a person under 16. His sentencing is scheduled to take place at Southwark Crown Court on 14 January 2025. Between June 2012 and November 2013, Siddiqui operated a private mobile circumcision service and procured anaesthetic while working in paediatric surgery at the trust. He traveled across the UK performing non-therapeutic male circumcisions—procedures lacking a clinical rationale—on patients up to the age of 14. In 2015, he was struck off the GMC register after a panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found him culpable for failures in performing the procedure in the homes of four babies. He maintained his service because non-therapeutic male circumcision is unregulated and does not require performance by a medical practitioner. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reported that on Tuesday, he pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to 25 charges, comprising 12 counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, five of cruelty to a person under 16, and eight of administering a prescription-only medicine. Anja Hohmeyer of the CPS stated, “Siddiqui practised these circumcising acts in an unsafe and unsanitary environment and so meted out painful cruelty to children leaving them with emotional and physical scars.” She further remarked, “He showed a complete disregard for the impact of his actions on his victims, families, and communities.” Det Ch Supt Fiona Bitters, of Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary, expressed: “I hope his pleas today help to bring some comfort to his victims who have had to wait many years to see justice served for his actions.”