A father went on his knees and prayed in a crown court dock – after being acquitted of trying to force his teenage daughter into marriage.

In the first case of its kind in Kent, Muhammad Akmal, 50, of Dane Road, Margate had been accused of coercing the girl into a forced marriage between September and December 2015 when she was 16.

But after deliberating for more than five hours, a jury at Canterbury Crown Court returned a NOT guilty verdict.

As the jury filed out, Akmal put his hands up and thanked them before falling to the floor in prayer.

He was eventually led from the court in tears telling lawyers and family: “I am sorry.”

But Judge Heather Norton was told that the teenager, who is now 18, was still in the care of social services and was subject to a civil order prohibiting her from being forced into marriage.

Earlier Akmal had told the court his daughter had been happy at home and agreed to the pre-marriage discussions when they travelled to Pakistan together.

"She and I had a great relationship," he added.

He said he was "a loving father who never hit his children" and the family had lived in Portugal before coming to the UK in 2013.

He and his youngest daughter went to Pakistan in 2015 - but he denied that she returned unhappy.

"I didn't know that she had been chatting online to a boy in Portugal and I was told she had sent photographs (of herself) over the Internet. It wasn't a good thing that she had done that."

He denied slapping his daughter or forcing her into a marriage to a cousin in Pakistan.

He said she had agreed to a "kind of engagement" agreement involving a religious leader but denied it had been a marriage.

"They were too young to marry. This was for the future. Not then. They would have had to return to get married," he said.