A teenager told a court how she saw her mother and father threaten her sister with a knife, a court heard today.
Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed are accused of killing their 17-year-old daughter Shafilea in the family home in September, 2003.
The murder was allegedly witnessed by Shafilea's younger sister Alesha, who kept the secret for seven years.
Alesha was brought into court and gave her evidence behind a curtain which blocked her from the view of her parents and the public gallery.
Mrs Ahmed wiped tears from her eyes as her daughter answered questions from Mr Edis.
She told the court that they grew up in a "restrictive" Pakistani culture.
She said western culture was "more free".
The court heard Alesha claim this forced Shafilea to live "a secret life" that her parents did not know about.
She said: "I think she found it difficult which is why it emerged she was living a life my parents didn't know about. It was kind of a secret life as well."
Asked what would happen when Shafilea came into conflict with her parents, Alesha said: "She was physically abused."
The court was told this happened "virtually every day."
She said the violence was triggered by the friends she kept, who were white girls, her music and her non-traditional clothes.
Alesha said her parents also "had their suspicions" that she was in contact with young boys.
Alesha described an occasion when her parents locked her in a room and starved after an argument.
She said: "She was locked in a room and she was not given anything to eat for a long period of time. I think it was two or three days that she was locked in."
In another incident she described how her parents threatened Shafilea with a knife.
Andrew Edis QC told Chester Crown Court that Alesha had described her parents suffocating her sister to police.
He said they put their hands over her face "to close her airways so she could not breathe."
He added: "She had a bag forced into her mouth."
Mr Edis said Alesha will tell the court how she saw her parents in the kitchen of their home in Liverpool Road, Warrington, with bin bags and tape, wrapping the body up.
She told police she later saw her father outside.
Mr Edis said: "She looked out of the window and saw her father with a large object wrapped in bin bags. She assumed that was the body of her sister."
He said she then heard a car driving off.
Shafilea's decomposed remains were discovered in Cumbria in February 2004 but it was not until 2010 that her sister Alesha provided the "final piece of the puzzle" about her death, the court has heard.
Ahmed and his wife, aged 52 and 49, both deny murder.
A couple allegedly murdered their "westernised" teenage daughter because they believed her conduct was bringing shame on the family.
Mr Edis told the jury that Alesha was arrested in 2010 for being involved in a robbery at her parents' home, in which three masked men tied up her mother, two sisters and brother.
Six days later she alleged to police that her parents killed Shafilea, he said.
Mr Edis told the jury Alesha was either telling the truth about the death of her sister "which she has kept under wraps for years for reasons of family loyalty" or for other reasons because her relationship with her parents "became toxic".
Mr Edis said Alesha, who is on witness protection, was awaiting sentence on the robbery charge and added:
"She hasn't received any promises or indeed any inducement prior to when she first made these allegations."
He described her disclosure as a "bombshell" and said it was either the truth or "a wicked lie made up to help herself".
He added: "She now finds herself estranged from the family as a result of what she has said.
"Her life has turned upside down because of what she has said and what she has done."