A Muslim cleric has gone on trial suspected of threatening to kill his daughter after she declined to have arranged marriage.
Abid Hussain is alleged to have assaulted the 16-year-old girl after she turned down his plans for her to marry her first cousin.

The alleged victim,Rabiyah Abid, was in a relationship with a student she had encountered on Facebook –and had previously absconded from home to be with him. Hussain,a father of five,is said to have gripped her by the throat and said,‘follow my rules or I’ll kill you’,before cracking her on the head at the family home above the mosque he heads at Northmoor Road,Longsight,Manchester.

Hussain, who denies the assault charge,is on trial with two of his sons, Nawab Uddin, 23, and Bahaud Uddin, 21,pictured.

The two men are suspected of robbing their sister of the mobile phone she used to call the boyfriend they despised and to have laid into her until she was dizzy.

They deny assault and robbery.As the case commenced, Henry Blackshaw, prosecuting, divulged the that the girl lived in a ‘very male dominated, patriarchal household’ where she was ‘exhausted’ by cooking and cleaning.

She had been ‘engaged’ by her father to his sister’s son in Pakistan at only 15 years old,(quite an age compared to the young girls they impose themselves on in the UK!),but ended up falling for a student she had met on the internet some months later.

In November 2011,while her father was celebrating Eid in Pakistan,the student travelled from London to Oldham, Lancashire to stay with a friend and the girl left her at home to stay with him.

This instigated her brother,Nawab,to report her missing.When police discovered her,she told them of her anxiety that she would be forced to marry when she had finished her exams.

When her father returned from Pakistan,he became aware that she had stayed with her secret boyfriend,and to add ‘insult to injury’,was served with Forced Marriage Prevention Order that officers had helped her acquire.

Mr Blackshaw said Hussain was shown the order,which led to the girl’s passport being taken by the authorities,and said it was a ‘combination of her and the UK judicial system depriving him of his right to choose her husband within his own family’.

Weeks later,on Boxing Day,he is said to have attacked her.In the aftermath of the incident,she sent a text to her boyfriend saying ‘I thought I was going to die last night’.

Describing the alleged attack to police, she said:"He used his right hand to grab my neck.It was quite painful.He said ‘If you don’t follow my rules I will kill you.’

He was quite angry,really angry."Two days later her brothers,Nawab and Bahaud,allegedly took her phone from her and struck her about the face and head,leading her to wear a veil to hide her injuries.

The day after she reported them to police. Mr Blackshaw said of Abid Hussain:"He is plainly a devout man retaining traditional values regarding family matters,which is the reason for what we say was the offending in this case,because his daughter was not going along with his wishes in following that cultural duty."