A volatile Afghan national murdered his young wife because he feared being forced to leave the UK if she divorced him, a court heard today.

Farhad Sarfi, 23, is on trial for murdering Polish national Orina Morawiec, 21, at their flat in south east London in August last year.

The Old Bailey trial was told he stabbed the former Marks & Spencer shop worker in the neck and chest multiple times and with such force that the knife ruptured her heart and penetrated through to the bone.

Opening the case, prosecutor Zoe Johnson QC said Ms Morawiec had become infatuated with the defendant after they met at Lewisham College where she studied tourism and administration.

When they married in 2012, she wore a head scarf and pledged to convert to the Islam religion for her controlling husband.

But the relationship turned volatile and they argued over her make-up and wearing Muslim dress.

She was even forced to see her friends in secret, the court was told.

In May last year, Ms Morawiec told her mother that she had tried to leave the flat and he leaned out of the window and threatened her with the words: "You must come back and if you do not I will take this knife and kill you."

By the time of her murder in August last year, she had told Sarfi she wanted a divorce, the jury was told.

Unemployed Sarfi had been denied asylum in the UK but after the wedding his status changed and he could stay as a spouse of the European national.

Ms Johnson told the jury: "If Orina had divorced the defendant he would have to leave this country or apply in his own right for leave to remain.

"The prosecution suggest this may be a reason why the defendant became angry with his wife and killed her."

On the day of the murder, on August 14, the victim's mother Anna Morawiec raised the alarm because they had been due to go swimming together.

That evening, an officer kicked in the front door and found the body of Ms Morawiec in a two-piece swim suit on a sofa bed in the couple's living room.

Police found a bloody knife in the kitchen sink, blood stains in the bathroom and Sarfi's discarded clothes in the bedroom of the flat in Leigh, south London.

Sarfi had fled to Dover and was eventually picked up by police standing by a carriageway, the court heard.

In a prepared statement he gave to police, Sarfi blamed a Peckham gang for killing his wife and produced a detailed account of his movements which led to the carriageway near the Kent port.

However, that was a "lying account" said Ms Johnson, and he was charged two days after the murder.

Sarfi, of Eastdown Park, south east London, denies murder.