A TURKISH gardener has told a court how he killed a North Yorkshire mum in a crime of passion after discovering she had been living with another man for six years.

Veli Acar told the High Criminal Court of Fethiye, in the Aegean region of Turkey, that he had intended to commit suicide in front of Anne Bury and her family.

Instead he chased them around her villa in the Turkish resort of Dalyan and opened fire with a pump-action shotgun.

Miss Bury, of Swainby, near Stokesley, North Yorkshire, who had been celebrating her 56th birthday with a poolside party hours earlier, died after being shot three times on September 9, last year.

Her 24-year-old Newcastle University graduate son, Alex, underwent emergency surgery for severed arteries and her 87-year-old mother, Celia, of Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough, suffered a gunshot wound to her back.

The opening of Acar’s murder trial heard how he considered himself to be Miss Bury’s husband following a five-year relationship with the former midwife at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough.

However, Miss Bury’s family have dismissed claims she was romantically involved with Acar.

Acar told the court he met Miss Bury on a sailing trip in Dalyan, and their financial affairs became so intertwined that she gave him £21,500 to buy a boat and he paid for maintenance, food and drinks at her holiday home.

He claimed they lived together like man and wife whenever she came to stay - usually for a couple of weeks at a time.

But Acar claims his hopes were dashed when he discovered Miss Bury was already in a long-term relationship with another man.

Acar told the hearing that he had split from his Glaswegian wife in 2010 after she found text messages on his phone from Miss Bury.

The court heard claims that, after a fire at her villa, he mortgaged his father’s home to pay for repairs and even paid for part of the birthday party.

He told the court: “We were in love with each other. Although we did not officially get married, we lived the life of a wife and a husband until 2013.

“I still love her. I have her photos on my wall even in the prison.”

Acar said he had asked Miss Bury, who worked as a risk manager for an oil company in Dubai, if he could return with her to the Middle East, but she told him she didn’t want to him to, adding “they’ll kill you there”.

The 47-year-old claimed Miss Bury told him she wanted to continue her six-year relationship with an Arabic man, but tensions escalated after she received a Facebook message from his love rival.

“I saw the picture of that person with whom she had a relationship there.

“When I asked her about that, she just (swore) in English and spat at my face and said ‘It’s my life; it’s none of your business’. I told her to leave. She did not reply."

Acar said he let himself into Miss Bury’s house at 5am after the party to kill himself and was confronted by her son, before aiming his shotgun at his own throat and demanding answers over why the family had filed a criminal complaint about him to the police.

He said: “I did not threaten them at all. I have never cut even a chicken in my life. I sold my boat because of (Miss Bury) and her family.

“They spat at my face and humiliated me. (Miss Bury) had cuckolded me. So, I did not know what I was doing at that time.

“I took a shot between her legs. She and her mother went to the bathroom and locked the door.

“I shot the lock of the door. I shot at their feet. I would not shoot at (Miss Bury's) mother because she is an old woman.

“I took three shots with the shotgun, as far as I remember. I had lost my control at the time. This event took place because they constantly humiliated me.”

The chairman of the court said Acar’s story was not consistent with Celia and Alex Bury’s statements following the event and adjourned the trial until March 20.

Acar was remanded in custody.