Sara Sharif sustained at least 71 external injuries shortly before she was killed, a court has heard.
The 10-year-old schoolgirl’s “constellation” of injuries included grazes, burns, puncture wounds and bruises, some of which were the result of “repetitive blunt trauma” and “blunt impact or solid pressure, or both”, a pathologist said.
Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, 42, her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and her paternal uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of carrying out a violent “campaign of abuse” before she was found dead in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August 2023.
The defendants allegedly killed Sara on 8 August before fleeing to Pakistan, from where Sharif called police to say he had “beat her up too much”. He had left a handwritten “confession” near her fully clothed body saying: “I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”
Giving evidence on Wednesday, Dr Nathaniel Cary, a consultant forensic pathologist, gave Sara’s cause of death as “complications arising from multiple injuries and neglect” and described it as “unnatural”.
He presented his findings from a postmortem examination of her body carried out on 15 August 2023 which showed she had several older scars and more than 71 recent external injuries.
The court heard that Sara had also suffered internal damage, including a traumatic brain injury, multiple bruises on her lungs and abdomen, and multiple skeletal injuries.
Cary said Sara, who was 4ft 5in (1.37 metres) tall and weighed 4st 2lb (27kg), had “multiple marks all over the body”, with injuries on her face, head, fingers, ankles and back.
Detailing her injuries, he said she had a “sharp or semi-sharp” puncture wound to the forehead that had been left “gaping”.
He described a collar of “intense” purple-red bruising around the neck, top of the chest and shoulders, measuring 27cm across and 13cm long. He described the bruise as “everywhere”, adding: “It’s the result of blunt impact or solid pressure, or both.”
The court heard that a cluster of green and blue bruising to the abdomen had features suggesting it could have been caused by “being struck with an elongated object”.
Sara also had areas of ulceration, which Cary said he believed had resulted from burns.
On Sara’s legs there were more bruises, grazes and multiple linear red marks, which the pathologist said could have come from “repetitive blunt trauma”. He said purple-red bruising on her right thigh was likely to have been caused by “multiple impacts with a linear object”.
The prosecutor, William Emlyn Jones KC, asked about two deep linear grazes on Sara’s arm, which Cary said could have been caused by a semi-sharp object “scraping” and potentially “an object used as a weapon or possibly bindings”.
A deep area of skin was also missing on Sara’s ring finger on her left hand. “It is probably a type of sharp injury, something has taken a big chunk out of her finger, you can see how neatly cut the edges are,” Cary said.
The court heard that the prosecution case will also draw on evidence from specialists in burns, radiology and neuropathology.
Cary was asked about a report by a neuropathologist who examined Sara’s brain and found “features of traumatic injury of a few days’ duration” before her death.
The court heard that no natural diseases or drugs contributed to her death.
Recording his conclusions, Cary said: “There is evidence of very widespread injury to the skin’s surface … These findings are in keeping with significant and repetitive blunt force trauma.”
He said there was also evidence of a “significant” head injury and that he did not exclude the possibility of Sara’s burns contributing to her death through sepsis.
The defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and to causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023.
The trial before the judge Mr Justice Cavanagh is expected to last until 13 December.
