Rania jury told husband "beat her" if she spoke to other men

A friend of a dead mother-of-three, whose body has never been found, says the husband accused of murder was hitting her "eight or nine years ago".

Nazia Rahman told jurors at Manchester Crown Court that she knew Rania Alayed since the young mother moved to the UK to escape the violence of the Middle East. They met at a children's nursery in Stockton, Teesside.

She said that Rania's husband, Ahmed Al-Khatib, "beat her up" when she did not prepare food to his liking or if she spoke to other men.

Nazeera described seeing Rania with a bruise after Ahmed hit her with "a hot spatula" in their kitchen.

When the couple moved to Manchester, she said her friend confided that the violence continued. "She wanted to get out of the house", Ms Rahman told the court, "but he pushed her down and raped her. She showed me a scar. She said Ahmed threw a plate at her. Then she showed me marks on her back, wrist and arms: burns, from a cigarette."

Rania, from Cheetham Hill in Manchester, vanished in June 2013. Ahmed Al-Khatib denies her murder. His defence is that he is mentally ill and killed her during a hallucination that she was an "evil apparition".