Sara Sharif’s father has tearfully told a court he felt his “world crushed” as he held her lifeless body in his arms.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, told jurors he found the 10-year-old collapsed after his wife Beinash Batool called him home from work on the evening of August 8 last year.
Asked to describe his emotional state as he hugged and kissed his daughter, Sharif told jurors: “I was numb. My world crushed, the whole world has fallen on me.”
Sharif is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of Sara’s murder, along with her stepmother Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29.
I was numb, like I am now. I was shocked
Giving evidence on Friday, Sharif said Sara was “limp” on Batool’s lap in a bedroom by the time he returned to the family home in Woking, Surrey.
His wife had claimed Sara was being “dramatic” and “pretending” not to get up after she fell on the stairs while being “silly” with another child, the court was told.
Sharif said: “I lifted her left arm but she wouldn’t get up. Her arm was limp. I dropped it and it just went down.
“I tapped her face, asked Sara to get up, but she didn’t get up so I took Sara from Batool’s lap and tapped her again.
“She opened her eyes, said she is thirsty, needs water, and she’s feeling sleepy.
“I shouted for water. She (Batool) gave me the water but she (Sara) didn’t drink. She did not wake up, she was sleeping.”
Sharif went on: “I shouted for (an) ambulance because I could not hear breathing. I checked the pulse and there was none.
“I started giving her CPR. I was numb, like I am now. I was shocked.”
He carried on chest compressions as Batool stood by and shouted at him in Urdu: “Wake her up, wake her up, she cannot die,” jurors were told.
After about 10 minutes, he stopped and Batool hugged him and said: “Leave her, Sara is dead,” the court heard.
Sharif said he asked Batool where the ambulance was, but she told him: “There’s no point. There is no need because she’s dead.”
He told jurors he did not call emergency services himself because Batool “snatched” the phone from him and told him he should protect the family.
“I wasn’t myself. I was all over the place. When I left about an hour ago I hugged her, kissed her, I didn’t know what happened.
“I picked her up. I just hugged her and was kissing her. I could not believe that she was gone. I was not accepting. I’m still not accepting that my daughter is gone.
“I was just hugging her, that’s it. I was just asking her, ‘wake up, just once’.
“I was in shock, numb like I’m sitting here. I could not understand what had happened.”
Sharif closed Sara’s eyes with his hands, Batool “shed a few tears” and then Malik came upstairs and “burst into tears” after failing to find a pulse, the court heard.
The defendant claimed the initial plan was for Batool to go to her relatives in Luton so he could call police and say Sara died in his care.
Batool made 30 calls to members of her family but they did not help because they were “scared”, he said.
Sharif said he carried Sara into the bathroom to clean her body but was physically stopped by Batool who told him: “Are you stupid, just leave her.”
The defendant said he was “shocked” to see a red mark on Sara before Batool explained the other child had beaten and stamped on her.
Sharif said he wrote a letter confessing to killing her daughter and left it beside Sara’s body so he could “take the blame”.
But it was Batool who instructed him to say in the note that he had “lost it”, he said.
Later that night, flights were booked for the family to travel to Pakistan the next day.
Sharif said it was “selfish and inhuman” to leave his daughter alone “like an orphan”.
So much was going on under my nose that I didn’t know
Jurors have heard how police found Sara’s body after Sharif called from Islamabad on August 10.
A post-mortem examination found she suffered dozens of injuries, including burns from an iron, human bite marks and signs of restraint.
The defendants were detained on their return to the UK on September 13 last year.
By then, Sharif told jurors he had every intention of taking the blame again but changed his mind after being told about the extent of Sara’s injuries.
He said: “I couldn’t believe it. I was crying… so much was going on under my nose that I didn’t know.
“I didn’t do it. (The other child) was not capable of doing that.”
Defence barrister Naeem Mian KC asked: “Who did you think did it then?”
Sharif replied: “There is only one person left – Beinash.”
Concluding his questions, Mr Mian said: “It will be put to you, Mr Sharif, you are manipulative, you are controlling, you, Mr Sharif, were exerting coercion over Batool, you, Mr Sharif, are the person who would beat the crap out of Sara, not (the child), not Batool, but you.
“You, Mr Sharif, would beat Sara with a cricket bat, you would beat her with a white pole…. and ultimately that it is you who is responsible for the death of your daughter.”
Sharif denied it, saying: “Every single thing that happened happened when I am not at home.”
Batool sobbed in the dock throughout Sharif’s evidence on Friday and Malik wiped his eyes and bowed his head.
The defendants, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16 2022 and August 9 2023.
The trial was adjourned until 2pm on Monday.
