A FATHER murdered his teenage daughter because of the shame he felt over her relationship with a 30-year-old man, a court heard.

Mehmet Goren is accused, along with his two brothers, of the killing in 1999 of 15-year-old Woodford Green schoolgirl Tulay Goren, and conspiring to murder her boyfriend Halil Unal.

A packed courtroom at the Old Bailey today heard how the deeply traditional family – who fled to England in the mid-1990s following political persecution in their native Turkey – had been enraged by Tulay's relationship with the man, who worked with her mother in a textile factory in Hackney.

Tulay's family had already planned an arranged marriage for her with a cousin in Switzerland, and also found the relationship unacceptable because Mr Unal was an Alevi Muslim while the Goren family are Sunni Muslims, the court heard.

Jurors heard how Tulay, a Woodbridge High School student, disappeared from her family home in Glastonbury Avenue on January 7 1999.

She was never seen again and her body has never been found.

A few weeks later Mehmet attacked Mr Unal outside the Thatched House pub in Leytonstone with an axe, slicing his neck in the process.

Jurors were told that Mehmet was convicted in 2000 of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm over the attack, but that there was not enough evidence at the time to try him on a charge of conspiracy to murder.

Prosecution barrister Jonathan Laidlaw QC told the court that while it may be likely that Mehmet alone killed Tulay, his brothers Cuma Goren and Ali Goren were deeply involved in the plot to kill the couple.

TULAY WAS 'KIDNAPPED THEN KILLED'

Tulay first met Halil in September 1998. They saw each other three times before her father discovered about the relationship.

Shortly afterwards, it is alleged, Mehmet Goren tracked down Halil and beat him up at the textile factory where he worked in Hackney.

As the relationship between Tulay and her father deteriorated, the schoolgirl ran away from home, eventually ending up at Leytonstone Police station.

Her mother persuaded her to come home, but Tulay ran away again in December and moved in with Halil.

They lived together for three weeks before her father tracked them down at Halil's flat, and allegedly tricked Tulay into coming home again.

She was then drugged by her father so she could not escape, the court heard.

Then, sometime on the night of January 7, Mehmet killed Tulay and buried her in the back garden, it is alleged.

WIFE TO TESTIFY AGAINST HUSBAND

Duting his opening statement, Mr Laidlaw said Tulay's mother Hanim would testify during the trial against her husband.

Originally Mrs Goren said "very little" to police when her daughter first disappeared as "she was at that stage simply too frightened to speak out and, indeed, had she done so, she too would have been at risk."

She has now, Mr Laidlaw said, changed her mind, and would tell the court of her husband's actions during the month of January 1999.

She has told police that her husband Mehmet told her to take their other children to stay at Cuma's house in Walthamstow.

When she returned to their home in Glastonbury Avenue the next day, Mrs Goren said two knives were missing from their kitchen as was almost a full roll of black bin liners.

She was also suspicious that her husband had washed his shirt - despite never apparently washing any of his clothes during the length of their marriage.

The following day Mrs Goren noticed some earth had been disturbed in their garden. Mehmet Goren said he had dug up the ground because he wanted to grow some onions and flowers.

'TULAY'S DEFIANCE BROUGHT SHAME ON FAMILY'

Mr Laidlaw said: "The label 'honour killing' is an appalling and inappropriate way to describe an offence such as this because there is of course nothing honourable at all about the murder of a young woman carried out by members of her own family.

"The title 'honour killing' is almost to dignify the terrible thing they did."

He added that according to the prosecution's expert witness "Tulay's defiance of her family and particularly of her father would have brought shame upon the Goren family and would have given rise [to gossip] in their community."

Jurors were also shown a map of east London featuring some of the locations in the trial, such as Woodbridge High School in St Barnabas Road, Woodford Green, and St John's Road in Walthamstow, where Cuma Goren lived at the time.

Mehmet, of Navestock Crescent in Woodford Green, Cuma, of Evesham Avenue in Walthamstow, and Ali, of Brettenham Road in Walthamstow, deny all charges.

The trial continues.