A mosque leader accused of smacking an eight-year-old boy has told a jury he treated him like a son.

Senior mullah and teacher Ayub Ibrahim Khalifa is alleged to have hit the child repeatedly with a bamboo stick and slapped him in the face. It is also claimed that the boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was punched in the back and pushed down stairs.

The alleged attacks are said to have taken place at the Masjid Uzman mosque in Upper Seymour Street, Bradford.

Khalifa, a 39-year-old father-of-four, of Percival Street, Barkerend, Bradford, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of causing actual bodily harm, two of intimidating a witness and one of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

He told Bradford Crown Court yesterday: "After listening to these allegations, my heart was crying."

Khalifa was invited to this country about six years ago to teach at the mosque.

He said: "It's against Islam to hit any child. In fact, Islam encourages us to teach children, not smack them.

"I did not hit him. I basically taught him like I would have taught my own son."

Khalifa accused the eight-year-old of lying when he swore on the Qur'an he had been assaulted.

He rejected suggestions by the prosecution that he had offered a blank cheque to the boy's mother to buy her silence and had intimidated and threatened her.

Asked if he had said he was going to strangle her children, he replied: "This is totally against my religion. I teach people not to do that. I teach them it is wrong to do things like this. How can I possibly do something I don't preach?"

The case continues.