A MAN accused of `forcing' two boys to flog themselves in a religious ceremony tried to stop one of his alleged victims from doing it, a court heard.

Syed Mustafa Zaidi, 44, of Eccles, faces two charges of child cruelty at Manchester Crown Court.

Jurors were shown a 15 second clip of the younger of the boys taking part in the Muslim ceremony. The boy was stripped to the waist, wearing traditional dress of shalwaar kameez on his lower half, while beating himself with the bladed whip, known as a zanjeer.

The DVD was paused at the request of defence counsel Richard Marks QC to show the defendant, his own back bloodied, approach the boy and say something to him. The boy is then seen to raise his finger.

Speaking of the video, Mr Marks said to the alleged victim: "You agree it appears to show you doing that perfectly willingly?" "Yes," the boy said.

Mr Marks said what was happening was that the defendant was `going to you and saying, it's enough now, is that correct?'

The boy again said `yes'.

"He wanted you to stop," continued Mr Marks. "Yes, because I had a bad injury," said the boy.

Mr Marks said to the witness that the defendant `was approaching you saying that's enough, and you were saying to him, no I want to continue, correct?' The boy said `yeah' and agreed that was the reason he was seen raising his finger in the film.

"Why on earth were you saying that if it's true that he forced you against your will?" the defence barrister said, adding that the boy should have been `absolutely delighted' at being given the opportunity to stop if he had been forced into it.

The boy said: "When he forced me I thought I've done it - no point stopping me now, so I'm gonna do it one more time."

Mr Marks later suggested to the boy, `all the way through this you have been over-egging the pudding, exaggerating to make things worse, that's right?'
The boy replied `yes'.

The boy admitted he had made no attempt to stop Mr Zaidi from `forcing' another older boy to flog himself.

It emerged that the ceremony in January, known as zanjeer matam, had been televised live on a satellite channel. It was also revealed that the younger boy's mother had been in another room at the same community centre while the ceremony was going on, but it was disputed whether it had been screened on televisions in the room she was in, as the defence claimed.

The young boy also revealed that he had discussed the possibility of taking part in the ceremony with his mother before the day in question.

But even though he admitted he had wanted to take part, he maintained he had been `forced' by the defendant, and said he had only ever wanted to use the `kids' version of the zanjeer.

Proceeding