Sara Sharif: Urfan Sharif faces court alleged with ‘brutal’ murder of 10-year-old daughter

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

Sara Sharif suffered a “brutal” campaign of violence before she was allegedly beaten to death by her father.

The 10-year-old had been burned with an iron, tied to a hot pipe and had 11 spinal fractures, a court heard yesterday.

Her body, which was found at her Surrey home in August last year, was said to have been covered in bite marks, bruises and abrasions from “significant and repetitive blunt force trauma”.

The hushed courtroom heard how her father told police he had killed the “naughty” child before fleeing to Pakistan.

Urfan Sharif, 42, allegedly left a written confession next to Sara’s body, which was found under the pink covers of her bunk bed.

Police officers raced to the family home in Woking on August 8 last year following a tearful 999 call from Mr Sharif.

He told emergency services: “I killed my daughter. I legally punished her and she died.”

Claiming he was disciplining her for being “naughty”, the taxi driver added: “I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”

Mr Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool and his brother Faisal Malik are accused of murdering Sara after a “campaign of abuse”.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones, KC, told the opening of their trial at the Old Bailey yesterday: “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.”

“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.”

A post-mortem examination revealed the ten-year-old had been “beaten” with objects, strangled and was “left severely unwell, close to death” from a series of head injuries.

Sara’s ribs, collarbone, shoulder blades, arms and hands had also been broken and some of her fingers were fractured.

The court heard she had been tied up, possibly to a heating pipe, scalded with hot water, and had puncture wounds and burn marks on her buttock from an iron.

Mr Emlyn Jones said: “The injuries tend to suggest that Sara had been tied up and restrained perhaps for lengthy periods.”

“This awful constellation of injuries, and the pain they would have caused, was going on for at least weeks before Sara’s death.”

Following her death on August 8 last year, Mr Sharif and his family hurriedly made plans to flee.

The court heard they spent £5,180 ($10,000) on flights to Pakistan leaving the next day.

Sara’s stepmother Batool, 30, was allegedly strangely calm when she rang a travel agent about the flights while the victim was lying dead in the house.

Just an hour earlier a child in the house had sent an “urgent” WhatsApp message to a friend at 8.38pm to say Sara had “just passed away”.

Mr Emlyn Jones said: “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.”

The court heard that when the family were safely “thousands of miles away”, Mr Sharif called 999 an hour after landing in Islamabad at 2.47am on August 10.

Mr Emlyn Jones said: “Urfan Sharif began by asking the operator to take down his address. It sounds like he is crying. The operator interrupted and said ‘take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened’.”

“(Emergency) operators are used to hearing all kinds of dreadful things, but this one cannot have expected the answer he got to that question.

“Urfan Sharif told him ‘I’ve killed my daughter’.

“He used an odd expression: ‘I legally punished her, and she died.’

“He added ‘she was naughty’, and then ‘I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much’.”

Mr Sharif refused to reveal his location in the call and allegedly told police: “I think she was naughty over the last three, four weeks and I was giving her punishment.

He claimed that he had tried to resuscitate her, adding: “I’m a cruel father. I’m gonna come back... I’ll face the death sentence.”

As emergency services continued to ask about his whereabouts, the call ended.

On Monday, Batool wept in the dock as jurors were played audio of the harrowing 999 call lasting eight-and-a-half minutes.

The court heard that she had refused to provide a dental impression for comparison with bite marks found on Sara’s arm and inner thigh.

Officers found her body at her home on August 10 alongside a note allegedly in Mr Sharif’s handwriting.

The note, which was left on a pillow, read: “Love you Sara. Whoever see this note, it’s 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. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her but I lost it.”

Describing the appalling scene, Mr Emlyn Jones said: “In an upstairs bedroom, on a bottom bunk bed, the police found the body of a little girl lying in bed, under the cover, as if asleep. But she was not asleep. She was dead.”

After a month on the run, the family flew back to Gatwick where police arrested Mr Sharif, Ms Batool and Mr Malik, 29, who were all living in the house at the time of the alleged murder.

Mr Emlyn Jones said all three defendants had played a part, telling jurors: “At the heart of this case lies a simple but depressing truth – a ten-year-old girl was found dead in her home.

“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?”

He told the court that Mr Sharif now claims he faked the confession to protect his wife.

Ms Batool has accused Mr Sharif of being a “violent disciplinarian who regularly assaulted Sara”.

Mr Malik’s case is that he was “entirely unaware of any abuse”.

All three defendants deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The trial continues.

If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, phone 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Young people seeking support can phone beyondblue on 1300 22 4636 or go to headspace.org.au.

Lifeline: 13 11 14.