Uncle denies killing missing girl

Ali Goren said he had a "distant" relationship with Tulay's father Mehmet

One of the men accused of murdering a 15-year-old girl in an "honour killing" has said she was "like my daughter".

Tulay Goren's uncle, Ali, told the Old Bailey he got on "very well" with her. He denied following an "honour code".

Tulay vanished from her north London home in January 1999. It is alleged her family disapproved of her relationship with boyfriend Halil Unal.

Ali Goren, 56, Tulay's father Mehmet, 49, and another uncle, Cuma Goren, 42, deny murdering the teenager.

Giving evidence in his defence, Ali Goren, a father of five from Walthamstow, east London, was asked what his relationship with his niece was like.

"Very well, like my daughter. I liked her," said Mr Goren, speaking through a Turkish interpreter.

'Father angry'

Mr Goren spoke to Tulay on the day before the alleged murder, shortly after she had returned to the family home following a period away.

He said: "Tulay was not happy, on the verge of crying. She told me 'uncle, please, I do not want to stay here with my father. Halil telephoned and my father was angry with Halil'."

Mr Goren said that a later attempt to help was angrily rebuffed by Tulay's father.

Tulay Goren vanished from her north London home in 1999

The court has previously heard that Tulay's relationship with Mr Unal would have been unacceptable to her family because he was a Sunni Muslim while the Goren family was from the Alevi branch of the faith.

But Ali Goren said he had "no trouble" with Sunnis and that his own son had had a Sunni girlfriend since 1998, of whom he approved.

Defence barrister Michael Bromley-Martin QC asked him: "Do you yourself follow any honour code?"

"No," replied Mr Goren.

He told the court that his relationship with Tulay's father was "distant" and that they had argued over Mehmet Goren's gambling.

"We weren't talking," Ali Goren said.

Ali Goren, Mehmet Goren, from Woodford Green, and Cuma Goren, from Walthamstow, also deny conspiring to murder Mr Unal between May 1998 and February 1999.

The trial continues.