Sara Sharif’s father said ‘I legally punished her and she died’, jury hears

The father of Sara Sharif fled to Pakistan after allegedly killing the 10-year-old and called police to say “I legally punished her and she died”, a court has heard.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of her murder alongside Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.

The court heard that Sara had suffered dozens of injuries including “probable human bite marks”, a burn from an iron and scald burns from hot water before her death.

A post-mortem examination also revealed she had been “beaten” with objects and had suffered damage to the brain, jurors were told.

Opening the trial on Monday, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said all three defendants had played a part in a “campaign of abuse” against Sara leading to her death.

He said police found Sara’s body in a bunk bed in her home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year after her father called police at 2.47am and confessed to killing her.

Sharif was crying so much that the operator told him to “take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened”, the court heard.

During the eight-and-a-half minute call, he told the operator: “I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died.”

He went on to say “she was naughty”, adding: “I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”

Mr Emlyn Jones said an examination of her body revealed that Sharif’s claim to have beaten up his daughter came “nowhere near to describing the extent of the violence and physical abuse Sara had suffered” over a period of weeks.

He added: “Sara had not just been beaten up. Her treatment, certainly in the last few weeks of her life, had been appalling.

“It had been brutal. And throughout, these three defendants were the adults living in the house where Sara had lived, where she had suffered, and where she had died.”

An examination found there were five bite marks on Sara’s lower left arm and one to her inner thigh which indicated the “teeth had been dragged across the surface and with central bruising, probably the result of suction”, the court heard.

Other injuries included to her ribs, shoulder blades, fingers and 11 separate fractures to the spine and there were marks on her feet and ankles implying she had been restrained, jurors were told.

On arrival at Hammond Road, police found the property was quiet, very tidy and seemingly empty before discovering the body next to a note in her father’s handwriting, Mr Emlyn Jones said.

The note allegedly stated: “It’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating.

“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.

“I am running away because I am scared.”

Mr Emlyn Jones told jurors that evidence would show Sara died last August 8, two days before she was found.

The following day, the whole family fled on a flight out of the UK, landing in Pakistan on August 10, meaning Sharif was thousands of miles away when he made the call to police.

The court heard Sara was thought to have died on the evening of last August 8, as a child sent an “urgent” WhatsApp message to a friend at 8.38pm to say she had “just passed away”.

Half an hour later, Batool and Sharif set about booking flights to Pakistan the next day, Mr Emlyn Jones said.

The prosecutor told the jury that all three defendants “played their part” in the violence and it was “inconceivable” that just one of them had acted alone.

Addressing the jury, Mr Emlyn Jones said: “Ask yourselves, how could just one person have carried out so much abuse, so many assaults, without the others knowing about it and witnessing it with their own eyes?

“If any one of them was not a part of it, but had seen it, why then was nothing done to stop it, or report it?”

He continued: “Each of them denies that they were the one responsible for any of that violence and abuse.

“Each of them seeks to deflect the blame onto one or both of the others, to shift responsibility away from themselves, onto someone else.

“In other words, they are pointing the finger at each other.”

Jurors were told Sharif’s case was that his wife, Batool, was responsible for Sara’s death and his confession was false to protect her.

Batool accused Sharif of being a violent disciplinarian and she was fearful of her husband, Mr Emlyn Jones said.

Malik’s case is that whoever was responsible it was not him and he was unaware of what was going on, the prosecutor added.

The defendants, of Hammond Road in Woking, have denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16 2022 and August 9 2023.

The trial before Mr Justice Cavanagh is due to go on until December 13.