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.
UK
Urgent letter to home secretary over violence against women and girls strategy – as it omits child abuse
Ten child protection organisations have written an urgent letter to the home secretary expressing concern about the omission of child sexual abuse from the government’s violence against women and girls strategy, following a Sky News report.
Groups including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and The Children’s Society wrote to Yvette Cooper to say that violence against women and girls (VAWG) and child sexual abuse are “inherently and deeply connected”, suggesting any “serious strategy” to address VAWG needs to focus on child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The letter comes after Sky News revealed an internal Home Office document, titled Our draft definition of VAWG, which said that child sexual abuse and exploitation is not “explicitly within the scope” of their strategy, due to be published in September.
Poppy Eyre when she was four years old
Responding to Sky News’ original report, Poppy Eyre, who was sexually abused and raped by her grandfather when she was four, said: “VAWG is – violence against women and girls. If you take child sexual abuse out of it, where are the girls?”
The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, which is funded by the Home Office and a signatory to the letter, estimates 500,000 children in England and Wales are sexually abused every year.
The NSPCC “welcome” the government’s pledge to halve VAWG in a decade, but is “worried that if they are going to fulfil this commitment, the strategy absolutely has to include clear deliverable objectives to combat child sexual abuse and exploitation too”, the head of policy, Anna Edmundson, told Sky News.
Poppy is a survivor of child sexual abuse
She warned the government “will miss a golden opportunity” and the needs of thousands of girls will be “overlooked” if child sexual abuse and exploitation is not “at the heart of its flagship strategy”.
The government insists the VAWG programme will include action to tackle child sexual abuse, but says it also wants to create a distinctive plan to “ensure those crimes get the specialist response they demand”.
“My message to the government is that if you’re going to make child sexual abuse a separate thing, we need it now,” Poppy told Sky News.
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Rape Crisis, which is one of the largest organisations providing support to women in England and Wales, shares these concerns.
It wants plans to tackle child sexual abuse to be part of the strategy, and not to sit outside it.
“If a violence against women and girls strategy doesn’t include sexual violence towards girls, then it runs the risk of being a strategy for addressing some violence towards some females, but not all,” chief executive Ciara Bergman said.
A Home Office spokesperson said the government is “working tirelessly to tackle the appalling crimes of violence against women and girls and child sexual exploitation and abuse, as part of our Safer Streets mission”.
“We are already investing in new programmes and introducing landmark laws to overhaul the policing and criminal justice response to these crimes, as well as acting on the recommendations of Baroness Casey’s review into group-based Child Sexual Exploitation, and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse,” they added.
UK
Man and boy arrested on suspicion of arson after restaurant fire leaves two in critical condition
A 54-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy have been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a restaurant fire in east London on Friday.
Three people were taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition after the fire at the Indian Aroma in Ilford.
Two remained in a critical condition on Sunday morning, according to the Metropolitan Police.
The restaurant suffered extensive damage in the blaze.
Two further victims are thought to have left the scene before officers arrived, Scotland Yard said.
Woodford Avenue from above. Pic: UK News and Pictures
Police are still trying to identify them.
CCTV footage seen by the PA news agency appears to show a group of people wearing face coverings walk into the restaurant and pour liquid on the floor.
Seconds later, the inside of the restaurant is engulfed in flames.
“While we have made two arrests, our investigation continues at pace so we can piece together what happened on Friday evening,” said the Met Police’s DCI Mark Rogers.
“I know the community [is] concerned and shocked by this incident.
The moment the fire broke out.
“I would urge anyone with any information or concerns to come forward and speak to police.”
Hospital porter Edward Thawe went to help after hearing screams from his nearby home.
He described the scene as “horrible” and “more than scary and the sort of thing that you don’t want to look at twice.”
He said: “I heard screaming and people saying they had called the police.”
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The 43-year-old said he saw a woman and a severely burned man who may have been customers.
Another witness, who did not want to be named, said he saw three “severely burned” people being doused by the emergency services and given oxygen.
“I can only imagine the pain they were going through,” he said.
On Saturday, the London Ambulance Service told Sky News: “We sent resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic, an incident response officer and paramedics from our hazardous area response team.
“We treated five people for burns and smoke inhalation. We took two patients to a major trauma centre and three others to local hospitals.”
The police investigation is continuing.
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