Lovestruck Rachel on her way home

A lovestruck 14-year-old who fled to Turkey to marry a 24-year-old barman she met while on holiday was expected back in Britain today.

Rachel Lloyd was flying from Istanbul to Manchester today, the Foreign Office said.

But she was travelling with a heavy heart as she was forced to leave her lover Mehmet Ocack behind.

When asked by reporters yesterday if she wanted to leave Turkey and return to her Wrexham home, she tearfully shook her head and answered: “No, I want to stay”.

Rachel, who since May has lived with her grandmother Carol Lloyd, 60, in a modern semi-detached house in the Whitegate area of Wrexham, was reported missing on December 3.

But after Interpol and the Turkish police launched a search for her she was tracked down to the town of Gaziantep, believed to be Ocack’s home city, in southern Turkey on Thursday night.

She was reunited with father Bob and sister Beckie, 16, on Friday night, while Ocack was detained by Turkish police investigating their relationship.

Mr Lloyd said: “I am glad I have got my daughter back.”

A British Consulate officials, who is with them, said Rachel was “perfectly all right”.

He added she was “certainly not married” – it was legally impossible – but he was unsure whether there had been a ceremony.

“To marry in Turkey you have to be 18 years old or 16 or 17 with parents’ permission, so it is impossible,” the official said.

Meanwhile, social workers in Wrexham would meet with Rachel and her family in the coming days to discuss her future care.

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

Rachel, a pupil at St David’s School, Wrexham, first met Ocack while on holiday with her grandmother in the resort of Marmaris in May.

When she returned to the UK she refused to go to school and pined for Ocack.

She returned to Marmaris in October with Beckie and her grandmother.

But at the airport returning home, Rachel refused to board the plane and took a taxi back to Marmaris. A day later the British Consulate sent her home.

Her grandmother has been reported as having encouraged the relationship despite warnings from social services, and reportedly even spoke of buying a bar for the couple to run.

Rachel’s mother, Karen Thomas, 40, who refers to Ocack by his nickname Steve, admitted that she and her daughter needed help from social services.

She said her daughter was “besotted” by Ocack.

Mrs Thomas, from Wrexham, who is divorced from Mr Lloyd, has said: “We’re talking to social services to get some help for her because she is so mixed up. She needs help, I need help, we all need help.”