Sara Sharif was tied up with a plastic bag taped to her head in a ‘homemade hood’ and ‘beaten with a cricket bat’, the court heard today.
The 10-year-old’s father, Urfan Sharif, is accused of beating his daughter to death before fleeing to Pakistan last August after subjecting the schoolgirl to weeks of brutal abuse.
Months before the murder, neighbors noticed that Sara had started wearing a hijab in January 2023, which prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones, QC, said was an attempt to hide the horrific injuries she suffered at home.
Around the same time, neighbors reported hearing sounds of screaming and crying coming from Sara’s home, jurors were told.
Primary school staff noticed bruises under Sara’s eyes and on her chin in March 2023, but the victim gave “multiple conflicting accounts of how she got the bruises” and teachers noted she often pulled her hijab around her face to hide. .
Sara Sharif was tied up with a plastic bag taped to her head in a ‘homemade hood’ and ‘beaten with a cricket bat’, jurors were told.
Around the same time, neighbors reported hearing sounds of screaming and crying coming from Sara’s home, jurors heard
Urfan Sharif is accused of beating his 10-year-old daughter Sara to death before fleeing to Pakistan last August.
Sara’s body was found in an upstairs bedroom of her home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year after her father called police and confessed to killing her, jurors heard.
When police searched the house after the murder, they found Sara’s blood on the kitchen floor and on a vacuum cleaner.
Leaning against a brick outbuilding was a blood-stained cricket bat that had Sara’s blood in it.
Inside, the officers found a rolling pin, which also contained Sara’s DNA.
In a wendy house garden, police also discovered a belt containing Sara’s DNA, as well as that of her father Sharif and her uncle Faisal Malik, jurors heard.
In addition, police found a plastic-covered metal pole in the outbuilding, which experts matched to the shape of the bruises Sara had suffered.
Showing the jury images of the items found in the house, prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones said: “You can now look again at the bruises and broken bones Sara suffered with a better understanding of how some of those injuries appear to have occurred.” have been inflicted.’
Officers also found pieces of plastic bag tied with parcel tape in an outbuilding which Mr Emlyn Jones described as ‘homemade hoods’.
“They were placed over Sara’s face and then taped in place,” he told the court.
The hoods were stained with Sara’s blood and saliva and were said to contain Sharif’s fingerprints.
Police were testing a number of household items when they “started seeing guns everywhere” upon hearing what happened to Sara.
In a shed at the back of the house was a piece of black rope with hair torn from Sara’s head, and several rolls of parcel tape.
The court heard Sara’s 30-year-old stepmother Beinash Batool bought 12 rolls of parcel tape in July 2023, just nine days after purchasing six rolls from Amazon.
Jurors were told the tape was used to make the ‘homemade hoods’.
Towels and Sara’s leggings, which were soaked with urine, were thrown away in bins outside the family home, as well as a soiled nappy that Sara had been forced to wear, jurors heard.
The prosecutor told jurors: “Think about what it would take to keep Sara bound, restrained, restrained or hooded in the manner these objects indicate.
“If this was done by one of the adults in the house, why don’t the others intervene, why don’t the others release her? Why don’t the others help her avoid this horrible treatment?
“It’s one thing to put these hoods over her head, taping them in place – but how was her continued self-control maintained?”
Mr Emlyn Jones said Sharif struck his daughter off the school register in April 2023 and said she would be home-schooled, meaning she was “not seen by anyone in the outside world” before the murder.
The Old Bailey heard that neighbors of the family’s cramped home in Surrey would often hear screaming and the sound of a child crying, accompanied by ‘banging and rattling’, as if someone was trying to warn someone they were trapped behind a door.
Neighbor Rebecca Spencer said she often heard screams and cries and then “dead silence” as a distraught child fell silent.
Sara was allegedly abused for months, the lawsuit shows
Mr Emlyn Jones said: ‘On other occasions Mrs Spencer heard other bangs coming from the flat which sounded like someone had been punched or punched… Mrs Spencer considered reporting what she heard to social services but ultimately decided against it. not to do.’
New tenant Chloe Redwin similarly described hearing a child shouting, followed by their Batool shouting ‘shut the fuck up’ and ‘go to your room, damn it, damn it’. it was said.
Mrs Redwin also often heard the mother refer to children as ‘c****’, jurors were told.
The prosecutor said: ‘Occasionally Ms Redwin heard sounds of hitting; they were shockingly loud and were followed by the heartbreaking screams of a young female child.
“Above the screams, she heard the mother shouting, ‘Shut up,’ and at times the sounds of more smacking could be heard, followed by screams.”
None of the neighbors alerted authorities because Sara appeared “neatly dressed” and there were no obvious signs of injury, it was said.
The court heard Sharif was ‘aware’ of what was going on as he allegedly apologized for the noise.
Local residents noticed that Sara seemed to have a number of responsibilities within the household, including taking out the bins every week and hanging out the laundry.
The family deleted the Ring doorbell camera before fleeing to Pakistan on August 9, the day after the murder.
The prosecutor said: ‘You might wonder why that would have been done; and what its removal might tell you about the presence of mind of whoever removed it, as the family fled to Pakistan, leaving behind Sara’s corpse and an otherwise empty house that would inevitably be treated as a crime scene.’
Police later charged Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool, 30, (left) and his younger brother Faisal Malik, 29, (right), all of whom lived in the house at the time of the murder.
Sara died on August 8 last year after suffering a horrific series of injuries following a ‘brutal’ weeks-long campaign of violence, jurors heard.
Her entire body was covered in bruises, bite marks, stab wounds and abrasions from “significant and repetitive blunt force trauma,” it was said.
She had been tied, possibly to a hot pipe, burned with hot water, and had burns on her buttock from an iron.
A post-mortem examination revealed she had been ‘struck’ with objects, strangled and left ‘seriously unwell and near death’ from a series of head wounds.
In addition, Sara had eleven spinal fractures and suffered broken ribs, collarbone and shoulder blades. Both her arms, her hands and some of her fingers were broken.
After her death on August 8 last year, Sharif and his family spent £5,180 on flights to Pakistan that left the next day, the court heard.
Sharif then called 999 an hour after they landed in Pakistan on August 10, allegedly telling police: “I killed my daughter.”
After a month on the run, the family flew back to Gatwick, where police arrested Sharif, his wife and his younger brother Faisal Malik, 29, who were all living in the house at the time of the murder.
Mr Emlyn Jones said all three defendants had played a role in Sara’s murder.
Sharif, Batool and Malik all deny murder and causing or permitting the death of a child.
The process continues.