Clerics from four of Britain's mosques, including one in Kirklees, are under investigation.

They were caught out in a film “sting” – agreeing to conduct secret marriage ceremonies involving girls as young as 14.

They include a senior Muslim leader who has worked with West Yorkshire Police as an advisor on community cohesion.

Shams-Ul Huda Khan Misbahi, who preaches at the Jamia Masjid Kanzul Iman Mosque in Heckmondwike, inset, was covertly filmed agreeing to conduct a ceremony involving a 14-year-old.

This is despite having previously publicly denounced forced marriages.

Around 400 schoolchildren – mainly girls from South Asian communities – are forced into marriage every year in the UK, according to official Government figures.

The vast majority of forced marriages of British children happen abroad, according to official statistics.

But an ITV investigation has been told by experts in the field that children as young as 10 are being forced into marriage in the UK.

Undercover reporters from ITV’s Exposure programme, which will be screened tomorrow, posed as the mother and brother of a 14-year-old girl who they wished to marry to an older man.

The pair approached 56 mosques across the UK and 18 said they would be willing to perform an Islamic marriage, called a nikah.

Shams-Ul Huda Khan Misbahi was filmed at the Heckmondwike mosque and agreed to marry the 14-year-old.

In an Examiner interview on July 12, the cleric said arranged marriages are built to last unlike love matches.

The Islamic scholar, who is the highest-ranking Muslim cleric in Kirklees, said he believed that arranged marriages build solid families and strong communities.

Speaking exclusively to the Examiner from his office at the Kanzul-Iman Jamia Mosque in Heckmondwike the mufti said the latest generation of British-born Muslims were increasingly shunning arranged marriages in favour of ill-fated ‘love matches.’

That provoked conflict within families who then turned to the mosque – and the mufti – for help.

The mufti said marriage issues were his biggest workload and it was clear arranged marriages worked best, as long as there was no coercion or force.

The mosque has now launched a ‘thorough investigation’ and said it does not endorse forced or underage marriage.

Exposure: Forced to Marry, ITV tomorrow, 10.35pm.