Child-bride denies pregnancy claims in reluctant homecoming

STEVE BOGGAN

Chief Reporter

The child-bride Sara Cook arrived back in Britain yesterday, vehemently denying reports that she was pregnant and vowing to return to her 18-year-old "husband" in Turkey.

After a week of resisting a High Court order to return "forthwith", and amid emotional scenes at Istanbul Airport, the 13-year-old Essex schoolgirl announced that she was leaving her adopted country against her will before boarding a Turkish Airlines flight bound for Heathrow, with her mother Jackie.

Wearing a traditional head scarf and a long red coat, the teenager told a crowd that had gathered to see her off that she was leaving only because of an High Court order on 26 January making her a ward of court.

"If I do not go, my parents will go to prison, so I have to return," Sarah said.

She denied that she was carrying the baby of Musa Komeagac, the unemployed waiter she married in an unlawful ceremony last month. He remains in custody charged with statutory rape but she has vowed to try to return before his court hearing on 15 February.

"They have taken me from my husband's hands," she said. "But we will wait for each other and I will return as soon as I can. If they give me my passport back, I will return."

She told Turkish journalists on the plane she feared she would be put "in a madhouse" but she was reported to have been in good spirits throughout the flight.