A couple evaded justice for murdering their teenage daughter for seven years because the only witness was her sister, a court heard on Monday.
The decomposed remains of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed were discovered in Cumbria in February 2004.
As her parents, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed, went on trial for murder, prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told Chester Crown Court they had killed her because she refused to obey them and because they believed her conduct was bringing shame on the family.
He said the case had taken a "very long time" to be brought to trial because it was not until August 2010 that a witness to the crime came forward.
"This witness is Alesha Ahmed, Shafilea's younger sister."
The court heard that Alesha kept silent for seven years and only told police after she was arrested for taking part in a robbery at her parents' home in Liverpool Road, Warrington.
Edis said Alesha witnessed the killing of her sister by their parents "acting together".
"This evidence was the final piece of the puzzle which the police had been trying to solve for many years."
"Until that moment they had no direct evidence of murder," he added.
Edis said that, after witnessing the murder, Alesha lived in a family "under great strain" and that as she grew up she suffered from "divided loyalties".
Ahmed, 52, and his 49-year-old wife, deny murdering Shafilea at their home in Warrington in September 2003.
Shafilea was most likely strangled or suffocated, a pathologist told her inquest in 2008.
Opening the case against the Ahmeds, Edis told the jury of seven men and five women: "The defendants, having spent the best part of 12 months trying to really crush her, realised they were never going to be able to succeed and finally killed her because her conduct dishonoured the family, bringing shame on them."
The court heard that Shafilea had suffered domestic abuse at the hands of her parents in the 12 months leading up to her disappearance in 2003.
Mr Edis said: "The prosecution say during that year her parents embarked upon a campaign of domestic violence and abuse designed to force her to conform so that she would behave in the way that was expected of her.
"She was a thoroughly Westernised young British girl of Pakistani origin. Her parents had standards which she was reluctant to follow."
The court heard that the defendants put their daughter under "intense pressure" and were seeking to control her.
"She was unwilling to do this and she resisted," Mr Edis said.
Edis said: "The prosecution alleges that she (Shafilea) was murdered by the two defendants, her parents, at the family home on the night of September 11/12, September 2003. She was 17 years old."