I’ve done procedure 1,000 times: midwife

Grace Adeleye

A nurse accused of the manslaughter of a Rochdale-born four–week–old baby after a home circumcision said she had carried out more than a thousand such procedures without a problem. 

Grace Adeleye (67) performed the procedure on Goodluck Caubergs without anaesthetic and using only a pair of scissors, forceps and olive oil, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Goodluck was born on 22 Marc 2010 in Rochdale Infirmary and died 27 days later on 17 April after bleeding to death the day after the circumcision.

The defendant is a qualified nurse and midwife originally from Nigeria - as are the baby’s parents - and the circumcision of newborns is the tradition there, the jury heard.

Adeleye said she used a traditional, Nigerian “clamp and cut” method, which she had used hundreds of times. She said when she left the boy with his parents there was no problem - but she warned them to monitor any bleeding closely.

The Royal Oldham Hospital was only a mile and a half from the family home in Chadderton.

Adeleye, of Sarnia Court, Salford, denies manslaughter by gross negligence.

Earlier, the prosecution alleged she “botched” the procedure by leaving a ragged wound that bled, and her post–op care was woefully inadequate.

But Adeleye, a mother–of–six, told the jury she herself performed circumcisions on her two grandsons and carried out more than a thousand such procedures while practising in Nigeria.

(proceeding)