Girl, 14, uses fake passport to flee to Turkish barman

A phone bill of £900 told Rachel Lloyd's parents all they needed to know about their 14-year-old daughter's obsession with the Turkish barman she had met on holiday, so, fearing the worst, they confiscated her passport.

That did not work. She fled Britain on a false passport and last night her father was preparing to fly to Turkey to find her. Rachel, who may be in Istanbul, has phoned to say that she has married 24-year-old Mehmet Ocack, whom she met at Marmaris, a resort on the country's Mediterranean coast. He was believed to have had a wife already.

The girl's mother, Karen Thomas, fears pregnancy may be next. "I am desperately worried for her safety," Mrs Thomas said yesterday. "She has admitted trying for a baby with him. She is going to have a terrible life trapped in a marriage she cannot get out of."

The case mirrors that of Sarah Cook, who was 12 when she became involved in a holiday romance with Turkish waiter Musa Komeagac, and 13 when she married him, in 1996. She had his son a year later.

The Foreign Office insisted yesterday that the involvement of Turks in both cases was a coincidence, derived from Turkey's popularity as a popular holiday destination. But the cases are linked by the apparent complicity of key family members.

While Sarah Cook was actively encouraged by her parents, Rachel appears to have been assisted by her grandmother, with whom she lived in Wrexham, north Wales.

She was a normal teenager, wild about the boy band Westlife and regularly travelling the country with friends to attend their concerts before her grandmother, Carol Lloyd, took her on a half-term holiday to Turkey in May. There, she met Mr Ocack at Andy's Bar in Marmaris.

He asked her to become engaged to him, she claimed to have met the "love of her life", and at some stage rings were exchanged. By Mr Lloyd's detailed account, his daughter has returned twice with her grandmother to Turkey and on one occasion failed to return home with her.

The Foreign Office confirmed yesterday that consular officials in Turkey had escorted Rachel to the airport after she failed to return from a visit in October.

Officials at Wrexham borough council social services were unwilling to discuss Mr Lloyd's claims that it had become involved in the case after his daughter's first failure to return and that they had allowed his daughter to return to her grandmother's care.

The chief social services officer, Andrew Figiel, said: "We have very recently been made aware of the situation and are in discussion with the parents and the police on the best arrangements for the child's ongoing care and protection."

Mr Lloyd said he had confiscated his daughter's passport. "I wanted her to come and live with me," he said. "But I was the 'bad one' because I was trying to stop her romance. She even threatened to do herself harm if she did not return to her grandmother." Amid recriminations over the teenager's disappearance, Rachel's grandmother could not be contacted yesterday. But North Wales Police confirmed that its inquiries were focused on Turkey, with officers liaising with Interpol and the Foreign Office.

History points to the 14-year-old's adventure ending in tears, and even farce. Sarah Cook was made a ward of court and ordered back to Britain before announcing that her love affair was over during a quarrel with her "husband" broadcast on Turkish television.

She now lives at her parents' home in Essex with his child and her second son, fathered by the boy next door when she was still only 15.

"Back in England, I had second thoughts about the marriage and just felt it wasn't the kind of life for me," she said after her return. "I felt like an old woman, not a 14-year-old teenager."