A MUSLIM convert whose abusive husband allegedly left England to fight for Islamic State told jurors she would never have taken her three young children to join him, saying: "They mean the world to me."
Lorna Moore (33) denied knowing teacher Sajid Aslam (34) was going to set off for Syria while she was away on a family trip to Butlins in Skegness in August 2014.
She told her Old Bailey trial that she would "never" put her children in danger and called on her husband to "grow a pair" and come back to Britain to explain himself.
Mrs Moore, who is originally from Omagh, Co Tyrone, told how she met Mr Aslam when they were in the same university halls of residence.
She converted to Islam and they married three years later, going on to have three children aged 10, nine and three.
Soon after the birth of their first child, she said Mr Aslam changed and became verbally and physically abusive towards her, calling her a "f****** fat bitch".
She told jurors: "He started swearing. He pushed me into a pavement. He would grab me by the hair and put my face into the toilet and say 'Does that look clean to you?' He never left marks."
In 2010, Mrs Moore went to police to ask them to help evict him from the family house but they could not help, the court heard.
She said: "I had got to the point where I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I had been pleading with him to leave voluntarily.
"I went to Walsall police station and they basically said there was a thing called squatter's rights and they had no authority to go in and drag him out and if I wanted him out they suggested changing the locks."
Two weeks later, she locked him out and he stayed with his mother for the next six months until Moore went to a Muslim cleric to ask for a divorce.
On the cleric's instructions, she said: "He said I should be grateful. He said just because I was a white Muslim did not make me a special Muslim and I had to take him back in the house. I was devastated."
Mr Aslam returned but they did not live as a couple, apart from a brief reconciliation when their third child was conceived.
In November 2014, Mrs Moore returned from a trip to visit family in Ireland to the "nightmare" of police searching her home.
She said her older children were "scared" and "confused" about what was going on while her "little one was crying".
She told the jury that she had always co-operated with the police inquiries, saying: "I wanted to help them."
Defence lawyer Rag Chand said: "The prosecution case is you were intending to leave for good - is that true?"
Mrs Moore replied "No" and pointed out that she had just paid £4,500 for a teaching course.
On her children, the lawyer asked: "Would you take them to Syria? Would you ever put their lives in danger?"
Mrs Moore replied: "Never."
Quizzing her about police interviews, the lawyer said: "You are asked about the last communication with Sajid Aslam. You say if he is innocent and got nothing to hide, he should grow a pair. What did you mean?"
Mrs Moore replied: "Exactly that. He has got three kids here. He knows surely, if he had any concern for the kids and he is innocent, the first thing he would do would be to get on a plane and explain to the police."
She added: "I hate him for the things he has done to the kids."
Mrs Moore denies failing to tell authorities about Mr Aslam's plan to join IS in Syria.
She also denied that planning what she would tell the children if Mr Aslam was killed in battle.
"I was brought up in Northern Ireland," she said.
"As a teenager you check under your car [for a bomb]. That is not the life I want for my children."
