Sara Sharif's father told police 'I've killed my daughter' after fleeing to Pakistan, court hears

Sara Sharif's father told police "I've killed my daughter", claiming "I legally punished her, and she died," after fleeing to Pakistan, a court has heard.

Urfan Sharif dialled 999 in the early hours of 10 August last year, when he and the rest of his family were already thousands of miles away.

Sara Sharif, 10, was found with dozens of injuries, including bruising, burns and broken bones when her body found in an upstairs bedroom on a bottom bunk bed in her home in Woking, Surrey.

In an eight-and-a-half minute phone call played to jurors at the Old Bailey, minicab driver Sharif, 42, is heard crying before he tells the operator: "I've killed my daughter".

He also says: "I legally punished her, and she died," adding "she was naughty", and: "I beat her up, it wasn't my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much".

Prosecutors say Sara was killed on 8 August, before Sharif and his family flew to Pakistan the following day, landing on 10 August.

Police later found a note in his handwriting, which said: "It's me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating", and "I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it... I am running away because I am scared."

But prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said Sara had been subjected to repeated serious violence over a significant period of time and his claim came "nowhere near to describing the extent of the violence and physical abuse Sara had suffered".

Sharif is on trial with his wife and Sara's stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and Sara's uncle, Faisal Malik, 28.

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.

"At the heart of this case lies a simple but depressing truth. A little girl, a 10-year-old girl, was found dead in her home," said Mr Emlyn Jones.

"She had been the victim of assault and physical abuse for weeks and weeks, at least," he said.

"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, living in the house where Sara had suffered and living in the house where Sara died."

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Prosecutors say all three played their part in the violence and mis-treatment that resulted in Sara's death and it is "inconceivable" that one of them could have carried out so much abuse without the others knowing.

The jury was told Sharif will claim he made a "false confession" to protect his wife, who will say he was a "violent disciplinarian" who she was afraid of.

Malik, who worked at McDonald's, is expected to say he was not aware of any of the abuse.

The trial continues.