Friday, October 18, 2024 - A father, who is on the run following the death of his 10-year-old daughter Sara Sharif, called 999 from Pakistan to say he had “legally punished her and she died”.
A court heard. Urfan Sharif, 42, also left a note next to
10-year-old Sara’s body on her bunk bed which said: “I swear to God that my
intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”
Sharif, along with partner Beinash Batool, 30, and brother
Faisal Malik, 29, are all accused of murdering Sara at her home in Woking last
year. All three deny murder and their trial at the Old Bailey began earlier
this week.
In a 999 call at 2:47am on August 10, 2023, taxi driver
Sharif said: “I’ve killed my daughter. I’ve legally punished her and she died.”
Sharif was crying so much that the operator told him to
“take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened,” the court heard.
Asked for further details, he told the operator: “I beat her
up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her but I beat her up too much.”
Sharif then fled to Pakistan alongside Batool and Malik,
where they spent more than a month following Sara’s death.
They were arrested on September 13 last year at Gatwick
Airport having flown back from Dubai.
A post-mortem revealed Sara had suffered “multiple and
extensive injuries” over a “sustained and extended” period of time.
Sara had probably died on August 8, two days before Urfan
called police. She was being home schooled in the months leading up to her death,
and before that was a pupil at St Mary’s Church of England primary school in
Byfleet.
Bill Emlyn Jones, prosecuting, 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.
Mr Emlyn Jones described what happened after Sharif called
999: "The police went to the address he had given. It was quiet and
seemingly empty.
"It was very tidy. 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.
“Her name was Sara Sharif, and she had been just ten years
old when she was killed.”
A note written in her father’s handwriting was found next to
her body, which 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 Jones went on to describe injuries suffered by Sara who
had been the victim of “a serious violent of assault and physical ab*se for
weeks and weeks, at least.”
“And throughout, these three defendants were the adults
living in the house where Sara had lived, living in the house where she had
suffered and living in the house where she had died,” he added.
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? ‘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.”
Sharif, Batool and Malik all also deny causing or allowing
the death of a child.
The trial continues.
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