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, had suffered dozens of injuries, including bruising, burns and broken bones when her body was found in an upstairs bedroom on a bottom bunk bed in her home in Woking, Surrey.
The Old Bailey heard she had been beaten with objects, strangled, tied up, burnt with an iron and even bitten in the weeks before her death.
In an eight-and-a-half minute phone call played to jurors, minicab driver Sharif, 42, was heard crying before he told the operator: “I’ve killed my daughter”.
He also said: “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 spent more than £5,000 to fly to Pakistan the following day, landing on 10 August.
Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik. Pics: Surrey Police
Police later found a note in his handwriting by her body, next to her pillow, which said “Love you Sara” on the first page.
“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,” it said.
“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her but I lost it. My daughter is Muslim. Can you bury her like Muslim may be. I will be back before you finish the post-mortem.”
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.
Sara Sharif
Pic:Surrey Police
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“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.”
‘Catalogue of dreadful mistreatment’
The prosecutor warned jurors to “take something of a deep breath” before outlining the “catalogue of dreadful mistreatment”.
This included 11 separate fractures to her spine, breaks to both hands and evidence of incidents of manual strangulation over a period of six weeks.
“There are other, perhaps even more disturbing, types of injury,” he said.
“The evidence shows that Sara appears to have been bitten.”
Mr Emlyn Jones said experts found “probable human bite marks” and while both men on trial had been excluded, Batool had refused to provide a dental impression.
Burns to her buttocks are believed to have been caused by a domestic iron, while other injuries indicate she was tied up, the court heard.
Prosecutors say all three played their part in the violence and mistreatment 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 part-time at McDonald’s, is expected to say he was not aware of the abuse.
The trial continues.
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Henrietta Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Eliza Huszti. Pic: Police Scotland
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
CCTV of the sisters. Pic: Police Scotland
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The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
A dirty needle thrown less than 100 metres from the new injection centre
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
Drugs paraphernalia in a supermarket car park in Glasgow, near the new facility
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
Clean needles are provided to lure addicts to inject in a controlled environment
There are eight bays users can inject in
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
The aftercare area
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Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.
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