Sara Sharif's father said 'I legally punished her and she died', jury hears

The father of Sara Sharif fled to Pakistan after allegedly killing the 10-year-old and called police to say “I legally punished her and she died”, a court has heard.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of her murder alongside Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.

The court heard that Sara had suffered dozens of injuries including “probable human bite marks”, a burn from an iron and scald burns from hot water before her death.

A post-mortem examination also revealed she had been “beaten” with objects and had suffered damage to the brain, jurors were told.

Opening the trial on Monday, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said all three defendants had played a part in a “campaign of abuse” against Sara leading to her death.

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He said police found Sara’s body in a bunk bed in her home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year after her father called police at 2.47am and confessed to killing her.

Sharif was crying so much that the operator told him to “take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened”, the court heard.

During the eight-and-a-half minute call, he told the operator: “I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died.”

He went on to say “she was naughty”, adding: “I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”

Mr Emlyn Jones 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