A man who shot his attractive blonde lover in the neck after she discovered that he was already married with four children and tried to leave him has been jailed for 17 years.

Serdal Gulser, 44, shot his lover Zeliha Atlar, 28, after breaking into her home in the district of Edremit in the Turkish province of Balikesir.

He had threatened to kill her after she discovered that the person who she thought was the man of her dreams was in fact already married with four children.

She wanted to end the relationship, but he at first showed up at her house with a gun and threatened to murder her if she ever dumped him.

She had no choice but to continue the relationship under threat of murder, but she eventually went to the police and filed a complaint after having been threatened with the firearm on multiple occasions.

The authorities issued a restraining order againsat the married father of four, but this reportedly did little to protect the victim.

One evening, Gulser called her and said that he wanted to talk. She believed him and the pair agreed to meet.

But instead of talking, he took her to a deserted, mountainous area, where he told her to get out of the vehicle.

He took a pickaxe, a shovel and a rifle from the boot of the vehicle and said: “I brought you here to kill you. I will bury you here.”

Zeliha reportedly fell to her knees and pleaded for her life, saying: “I don’t want to die.”

So instead, he made her promise to never leave him and he took her home.

She continued the relationship under duress, but eventually plucked up the courage to end things again. She called the defendant and told him as much.

But this time, he went over to her flat and shot her, on 10th October 2021.

The bullet entered and exited her neck before re-entering her body via the collarbone before finally exiting through her armpit and embedding itself in the floor.

Zeliha then ran screaming to the kitchen covered in blood, the court heard.

Gulser attempted to flee, but he ran into the victiam’s mother, named only as F. S., on the apartment stairs.

He fired a shot at her, but missed, leading to an argument between the pair. He then carried on downstairs and ran into the victim’s sister, named only as S. A., 12, whom he kicked in the stomach before fleeing.

He was arrested shortly after by police.

Zeliha was treated by medics responding to the scene, who then took her to hospital.

The young woman has said that she is terrified of the idea that he could one day be released and find her to finish the job.

During the trial, she reportedly begged the courts to impose the maximum sentence on him for attempted murder, saying that she did not want to die.

And now he has been jailed for 17 years and two months for attempted murder. It is currently unclear if the verdict is legally binding or if the defendant can appeal the sentence.

Femicide is a growing problem in Turkey, particularly after the country officially quit the Istanbul Convention in July last year.

According to the 2021 Annual Data Report announced by the ‘We Will Stop Femicide Platform’, 280 women were killed by men in 2021, while 217 women were found suspiciously dead.

According to data from the ‘Monument Counter’, which is a monument established on the Internet to keep alive the memory of the women who died due to violence against women in Turkey and which is updated every day, 59 femicides have taken place since the beginning of 2022.