'I did not leave my children home alone' says mother arrested after returning from Afghanistan

A woman accused of leaving her three children at home while she went away to Afghanistan has denied doing anything wrong.

Trainee teacher Simten Sezgun flew to Afghanistan with her new husband, saying she planned to look for work there.

Mrs Sezgun, 33, was arrested on her return to Heathrow on Tuesday evening and was taken back to West Yorkshire police station for questioning.

The three children, aged 11, six and five, were discovered alone in their house last month in Burley, Leeds, after a concerned neighbour called police.

But Mr Sezgun has today denied doing anything wrong.

'It is a lie to say I left my children alone, someone was always with them, day and night,' she said.

Before leaving Afghanistan she denied she had deserted her children to travel there on honeymoon with an American she married in Leeds just days earlier.

She said the allegations were 'all lies', adding: 'My children were being looked after and I rang every day to make sure they were alright.'.

She admitted she had remarried but said she was in Kabul looking at the possibilities of going there to teach when her training course ends next year.

'Who would come here on honeymoon?,' she asked. 'All you have is a lot of dust and people dying everyday.'

Mrs Sezgun revealed that she has married an American, who lives in Afghanistan in a religious ceremony.

But she maintained her children were being looked after day and night by an aunt and by a single mum Turkish friend.

'I am not the kind of woman just go off and leave my children,' she said.

'I left money for food and rang every day to make sure the children were alright.'

She said she left the children to be looked after earlier this year when she went away to Austria for six days, without any problem.

Family members have backed up Mrs Sezgun's story, claiming that lies are being told to blacken her character.

Her aunt Yasemin Fox, who lives in the United States said: 'Simten is a good mother who would never do anything to harm her children.

'She told me she was going away and the only reason she didn't take the children was because she couldn't afford to.'

But a sister of Rashida Latif, the aunt asked to look after the children said Mrs Sezgun had 'dumped'her children on her at short notice. 

She said: 'Simten didn't phone them quite when she was at the airport but it was near enough. 

'There was no time to discuss whether they could look after the children so they had to do it, Simten didn't leave them any time to make other arrangements. 

'My sister works but luckily she does shifts locally so she could fit in looking after the children around them. My sister was meant to be covering the night on the day when the police arrived but didn't turn up after hearing that.'

A police spokesman said: 'A 33-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of wilful neglect in relation to an incident in Burley on Saturday, August 30, in which three children were found at an address with no adult present.

'The 33-year-old woman has now been released on police bail pending further inquiries.'

Police said officers had found the children alone in the house but said they were all 'fit and well'.