Baby circumcised without mother's consent in Nottingham: 'His nappy was covered in blood'

'I opened the nappy and I ended up having to leave the room because I felt hysterical'

Dr Balvinder Mehat works at the Bakersfield Medical Centre in Nottingham (Googlemaps)

A mother has described the moment she opened her baby son's nappy to discover he had been circumcised without her consent.

"I opened the nappy and I ended up having to leave the room because I felt hysterical," the mother, from Nottingham, said in an interview with the BBC.

"It was just awful really, it wasn't very nice, there was all blood there and stuff."

Her son was circumcised when he was three years old in July 2013, as he was staying with his Muslim paternal grandparents.

Although she complained to Nottinghamshire Police, the force initially concluded there was insufficient evidence to bring a criminal prosecution.

However, she later got help from the anti-circumcision group Men do Complain and Saimo Chalal QC, a leading human rights lawyer.

Male circumcision is legal in the UK only if both parents consent.

But the mother believes it amounts to "male genital mutilation" (MGM) and should be viewed in the same way as female genital mutilation (FGM).

"It's even illegal to dock dogs' tails. I've come home crying my eyes out thinking a dog has got more rights than my child," she told the broadcaster.

"There's something seriously not right with it all. You can protect a dog, you can protect a girl, but not a boy."

The woman said her son had suffered recurring infections in the years since the circumcision.

She said: "It looks like he's been half circumcised is the only way to describe it. There's half the skin, it's not all the way over.

"It swells up, it gets red and a little bit sore in places."

After a letter from Ms Chahal, police reopened the investigation and arrested three suspects.

Dr Belvinder Mehat, of the Bakersfield Medical Centre, was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Also arrested was a 44-year-old man and a 47-year-old woman, believed to be the boy's paternal grandparents, who were held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.

All three suspects have been released pending further investigation, police said.