Mohammad Alazawi v R

Non-therapeutic religious circumcision by a non-medically qualified person may fall within an established exception to the general law of assault, but lack of statutory regulation does not make every procedure lawful. For Route 2 liability, the jury must ask whether the procedure was conducted so far below what a competent and careful non-medical circumciser would do that it exposed the child to a significant and unnecessary risk of additional harm. The assessment is individual. Hospital-based medical standards are not an appropriate sole benchmark; relevant evidence must address non-medical practice. Anaesthetic injection, cutting and aftercare form one procedure. On sentencing, overlapping deception and medication offending should not be double-counted through consecutive sentences. Totality required the overall sentence to be reduced to six years.

After a nine-week trial at Southwark Crown Court, the appellant was convicted on 20 counts, including fraud, wounding with intent and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He had also pleaded guilty to 20 medicines offences. The total sentence was nine years.

The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. The conviction appeal concerned the legal availability of Route 2 liability, the adequacy of the jury direction and the admission of medical evidence, and whether anaesthetic administration was separate from the circumcision. The sentence appeal concerned sentence structure, starting points and totality.

The court dismissed the appeal against conviction and allowed the appeal against sentence.

1. Consent and lawful exception. The common-law rule is that consent does not justify wounding or causing actual bodily harm without good reason. Established exceptions include ritual circumcision. The absence of statutory regulation does not make every non-medical circumcision immune from prosecution. The approach was consistent with R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 and R v BM [2019] 1 QB 1. Fraud which induced parents to consent by reliance on a false representation of medical qualification invalidated consent for Route 1 purposes.
2. Route 2 liability. The jury should ask whether the circumcision was conducted in a manner so far from that which a competent and careful non-medical circumciser would have adopted that the child was exposed to a significant and unnecessary risk of additional harm. Each procedure had to be considered individually.
3. Evidence and application. Evidence from surgeons about hospital procedures was not an appropriate benchmark for a religious circumcision carried out at home by a non-medical person. Relevant evidence should address competent non-medical practice, including evidence from non-medically qualified religious circumcisers. Nevertheless, the appellant’s unauthorised administration of anaesthetic was sufficiently far from competent and careful non-medical practice that the jury must have convicted under the proper test. The injection, cutting and removal of the foreskin formed one continuous procedure. The convictions were therefore safe.
4. Sentence. The deception and unauthorised medication use overlapped substantially with the wounding offences. Treating them as separate consecutive sentences produced double-counting. The sentencing exercise also had to focus on the offences of conviction rather than the total number of procedures performed. The four-year sentences for the seven section 18 offences were quashed and replaced with six-year concurrent sentences. All other sentences remained unchanged but ran concurrently. The overall sentence was six years, with all other orders remaining in force.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — In [2026] EWCA Crim 947 , leave was granted. The conviction appeal was dismissed. The sentence appeal was allowed and the overall sentence was reduced from nine years to six years.
2. Southwark Crown Court — The appellant was convicted after trial and sentenced to an overall term of nine years.