Teenager returns from Turkey saying she is married

A girl aged 14 who ran away to Turkey to marry a barman she met on holiday returned to Britain amid chaotic scenes yesterday.

Rachel Lloyd arrived back at Manchester airport with her father, Bob, after two weeks with her boyfriend, Mehmet Ocack, 24, whom she says she has married.

They were greeted by scores of waiting reporters, photographers and cameramen and were bundled through the crowds to a waiting car.

Mr Lloyd, 42, said only that he was glad to have his daughter home, adding, "I am really looking forward to Christmas now." His daughter, who looked tired and drawn, did not respond to questions.

However, before leaving Istanbul with her father and her sister, Beckie, 16, Rachel had fought back tears when she said she did not want to return to her home in Wrexham, north Wales, but wished to stay in Turkey with Mr Ocack.

Rachel, who was living with her grandmother before she disappeared to Turkey, will be interviewed by social workers this week to decide whether she should stay.

She first met Mr Ocack in May during a holiday with her grandmother, Carol Lloyd, in Marmaris, a coastal resort, and returned there in October with her sister and Mrs Lloyd. As they were due to fly home, she refused to leave and took a taxi back to Marmaris, but she was sent back to Britain by the British Consulate the next day.

After Rachel became infatuated with Mr Ocack, she ran up a telephone bill of £900 and her parents confiscated her passport, but she is thought to have applied for a false passport using forged signatures.

She was reported missing on 3 December after she flew back to Marmaris on the forged passport. She later rang home saying she had married Mr Ocack and wanted to have his children. Interpol and Turkish police traced her to Mr Ocack's home in Gaziantep, a town in southern Turkey, and she was reunited with her father and sister at the weekend.

Mr Ocack was detained by Turkish police who are investigating their relationship. According to some Turkish reports, Mr Ockack has been charged with having sex with a minor. The legal age of consent in Turkey is 15.

A British Consulate official said Rachel was "perfectly all right" and was "certainly not married" because it was legally impossible.

There could have been some kind of ceremony, he said, but "to marry in Turkey you have to be 18 years old or 16 or 17 with parents' permission, so it is impossible."

Rachel's mother, Karen Thomas, 40, said she and her daughter needed help from social services.

Mrs Thomas, who is divorced from Mr Lloyd, has said Rachel was "besotted" by Ocack and needed help because she was "so mixed up".

Wrexham's chief social services officer, Andrew Figiel, said: "We will now work with the family and Rachel in order to reach agreement about her future care, welfare and protection."

* Victoria Stephenson returned to Manchester yesterday from Dublin where she had turned up safe and well after disappearing while interviewing homeless people.

Police interviewing the student, 19, about her disappearance said she was sin an "emotional state" and it could take several days to determine why she had gone to Ireland. However, it is thought she may have left Manchester after a row with her parents about where she would spend Christmas.

Ms Stephenson, from London, was reunited with her parents and the family of her best friend, with whom she has lived since she was 16.