A doctor who was struck off over a “reckless” circumcision that risked killing a toddler is still performing the procedure as a layperson, the Guardian can reveal.
Campaigners say Zuber Bux’s private circumcision business highlights a “catastrophic failure of safeguarding”, as alarm grows about the absence of regulation of the procedure.
Bux is one of three former doctors who have had their licence to practise removed by the medical regulator over complaints about botched circumcisions from 2012 to 2022, according to data obtained by the National Secular Society (NSS) under freedom of information.
In 2021 the General Medical Council upheld a NHS complaint of serious misconduct over the circumcision of a 15-month-old boy, which Bux conducted in the community despite the boy’s known heart condition. A series of medical blunders by Bux led to the boy, referred to as Patient A, being transferred to hospital amid fears for his life.
Summarising its decision, the GMC panel said: “Patient A was a serious case involving a vulnerable child where Dr Bux adopted a cavalier approach to the procedure resulting in a hospital admission of Patient A in a potentially life threatening situation.”
It said Bux’s misconduct was of “such a serious nature” that removing him from the medical register was “the only proportionate sanction to protect the public, promote and maintain public confidence in the medical profession, and to uphold proper professional standards and conduct”.
Despite this finding, Bux, 55, continues to advertise his services as a “circumcision practitioner”, which is legal as there is no requirement for circumcisers to be medically trained.
In 2015 Mohammad Siddiqui, a private circumciser, was struck off by the GMC over medical failures in four circumcisions in separate homes. He, too, continued to perform circumcisions. Last year he was sentenced to more than five years in prison for causing “gratuitous pain and suffering” in circumcisions conducted between 2014 and 2019.
Last month, the Guardian revealed the Crown Prosecution Service was consulting on guidance for prosecutors that would categorise circumcision as potential child abuse, amid concern from judges and coroners about the lack of regulation of the procedure. Since 2001, circumcision has been a factor in the deaths of seven boys, including three children who bled to death.
On his website, Bux offers circumcisions for “religious/cosmetic reasons” for babies up to six months old in north-west England, including Blackburn, Preston, Bolton, Burnley, Accrington and Nelson.
The website says he has been performing circumcisions since 2003 and was a former senior partner at a GP practice. The website says he is no longer registered by the GMC but does not explain why.
The tribunal hearing was told that Bux was “reckless and cavalier in his treatment of Patient A” and “risked fatal complications by carrying out the procedure in the community”.
Specific mistakes upheld by the panel included: failing to consider Patient A’s congenital cardiac condition; failing to adequately inform his parents about the risks of the procedure being done in the community; failing to ensure the boy had sufficient pain relief – the cream Bux used did not “produce adequate numbness of the foreskin”; and administering excessive amounts of a liquid morphine.
Bux’s lawyer told the panel it was a one-off incident and Bux had conducted thousands of circumcisions in the community without complications or infections.
But the panel found Bux lacked insight into his mistakes, showed no remorse and gave no explicit apology. He was also struck off for “financially motivated dishonesty” after signing hundreds of bogus sicknotes for his wife’s legal firm.
Alejandro Sanchez, head of human rights at the NSS, said: “The fact that Mr Bux can perfectly legally continue to circumcise boys is a catastrophic failure of child safeguarding that is endangering the lives of boys.
“More fundamentally, ritual circumcision is medically unnecessary, dangerous and violates the child’s independent right to freedom of religion or belief.
“When it comes to children, circumcision should only be performed by doctors, and only with medical necessity. “Decisions about non-therapeutic circumcision should therefore be deferred until the individual is old enough to decide for himself based on his own values.”
Bux has been approached for comment.
