Sara Sharif’s father told police “I’ve killed my daughter” and that he had “legally punished” her after inflicting injuries that led to her death, a court has heard.
Urfan Sharif contacted Surrey Police on 999 in the early hours of 10 August last year, after he had fled to Pakistan leaving his daughter’s body at the family home in Woking, Surrey.
Officers discovered the body of the 10-year-old under a blanket on a bunk bed. She had suffered extensive injuries in a “campaign of abuse”, which included broken bones, burns and bruising.
Jurors at the Old Bailey were played the eight-and-a-half minute recorded call, with Mr Sharif heard crying as he told the operator: “I beat her up. It wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
Asked what had happened, he said: “I think she was naughty over the last three, four weeks and I was giving her punishment to sort her out, and I did something and she died.”
At the time of the call, he was thousands of miles away in Islamabad, having travelled there on 9 August with his two co-defendants, Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and the girl’s uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.
They each deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023, and will blame each other, the court heard.
Detailing the injuries Sara had suffered, prosecutor William Emlyn-Jones KC said that an examination of her body had revealed a “terrible truth”.
He told the Old Bailey: “When Urfan Sharif said in that call, ‘I beat her up’, he came nowhere near to describing the extent of the violence and physical abuse Sara had suffered – not just at the time of her death, but repeatedly, over time.
“She had been the victim of assault and physical abuse for weeks and weeks, at least.”
He added: “So no, 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.”
Jurors heard that next to her body was a note, which an expert concluded matched Sharif’s writing. It contained a confession similar to the one made during the 999 call.
It read: “Whoever see this note its me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I am running away because I am scared but I promise that I will hand over myself and take punishment.”
Another page read: “I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her but I lost it. My daughter is Muslim. Can you bury her like Muslim. Maybe I will be back before you finish the post mortem.”
As well as fractures and broken bones, Sara also had a number of human bite marks on her arms and leg. While Sharif and Malik had provided dental impressions that had ruled them out, Batool had refused to do so.
An examination of the child’s body also found “signs of traumatic brain injury” along with a “pattern of injuries” that included damage to Sara’s ribs, shoulder blades and fingers as well as 11 separate fractures to her spine.
She had also been burnt with an iron on the buttock, scalded by hot water, and restrained.
The Old Bailey heard that at 9.07pm on 8 August, shortly after Sara is believed to have been killed, her stepmother contacted a travel agent to try to book flights to Islamabad.
Due to difficulties with the card payment, the 50-minute phone call ended with no flights booked, and Sharif then contacted a money-transfer business shortly afterwards to organise next-day flights, telling them that his “cousin had died”.
Mr Emlyn-Jones KC continued: “What is entirely obvious is that just as no medical help had ever been sought for Sara in life, so it was that now, there was no question of a call to 999 from the house to seek emergency care in her dying moments, nor to report her death while those responsible were still there.
“Their flight to Pakistan was their priority.”
After intense media interest in the case, the trio returned on a flight to the UK on 13 September and were arrested and charged with Sara’s murder.
Each of the defendants denied murder, with jurors told that they were seeking to “deflect the blame” onto the others. Sharif’s case was that his wife, Batool, was responsible for Sara’s death and that he had falsely confessed in an effort to protect the guilty party.
Meanwhile, Batool has accused Sharif of being a violent disciplinarian of whom she was afraid, while Malik claims to have been unaware of any abuse going on in the household.
The prosecutor told the jury that all three defendants “played their part” in the violence and that it was “inconceivable” that just one of them had acted alone.
The trial before Mr Justice Cavanagh is due to go on until 13 December.
