A Keighley mother says a leading member of the Asian community should 'wake up' and 'tell the truth' about forced marriages.

Denise Ahad is English and has been married to her Bangladeshi husband Abdul, also called Billy, for 25 years. They have four children and live on Glen Lee Lane.

She has slammed Keighley Sangat Centre manager Khadim Hussain's comments, in last week's KN, that statistics of forced marriages are exaggerated.

Mr Hussain had responded to a Home Office working party report's finding that at least 1,000 British women face forced marriages every year.

The Home Office was also looking at changing the law to protect women abducted and made to marry without their consent.

Mrs Ahab says: "I have seen my sister-in-law being forced to marry at 15 to her 27-year-old cousin, known of young Asian girls taken back home and forced to marry.

"My eldest son's Indian girlfriend, who he met at university, has parents trying to force her into marriage, although she and my son have been going out for three years and are very much in love.

"We used to have a takeaway in Keighley and heard so many stories. Wake up Khadim Hussain and tell the truth about forced marriages."

Keighley MP Ann Cryer, who this week made an early day motion in support of the report ('A Choice by Right'), is prepared to face criticism from the local community.

She says: "I want the community to stand up and be counted with me. The onus must be with the community to put its house in order. Forced marriages are taking place in Keighley on a fairly regular basis and it must stop.

"If the community takes action further legislation will not be necessary.

"I've a great deal of respect for the Sangat Centre and what they do. The difficulty is girls who find themselves in this position won't go there for help."

But Khadim Hussain feels the Home Office report has misinterpreted the meaning of 'forced marriage.'

He says: "They are calling it a forced marriage because girls are not conceding to parents' wishes. This definition is totally wrong."

Mr Hussain calls the report "a waste of public money' which does not reveal anything the community did not already know.

He adds: "I am not denying there is a problem. We are being more proactive and taking steps, setting up several sessions and talking to parents. Force is morally unacceptable and we can't live with it. Even if parents try to force consent that's wrong. I am willing to denounce publicly any act of force or violence."