The trial of three family members accused of murdering schoolgirl Sara Sharif is set to resume on Wednesday, with neighbours who allegedly heard the 10-year-old “screaming” to give evidence.
Jurors have been told of a “campaign of abuse” against Sara, which left her with over 70 injuries and 25 different fractures, include a broken bone in her neck.
She was discovered dead in a bunkbed at the family home in Woking, after her father Urfan Sharif contacted Surrey Police from Pakistan on 10 August last year to say he had “beat her up too much”
Previously, the prosecution told the Old Bailey that she had had suffered “probable human bite marks”, a burn from a domestic iron and scalding from hot water.
Traces of the schoolgirl’s blood were discovered on the kitchen floor, a vacuum cleaner and a cricket bat following a police search of the family home along with “homemade hoods” used to restrain her, the jury heard.
Sharif, 42, her stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, have all denied her murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023.
Key Points
Neighbour had heard ‘banging’ and screaming as far back as 2018
09:27 , Holly Evans
Jurors heard that other neighbours from when the Sharif family lived in West Byfleet, where they moved at some point between 2018 and 2019, and later in Woking, where they lived from April 2023, had heard screams, smacking and crying coming from their home.
The court was told that neighbour Rebecca Spencer would hear: “banging and rattling sounds”, that: “would often be accompanied by the sounds of a child crying or a screaming, followed by complete silence.”
She added in a statement read by prosecutors last week that: “On those occasions I can only describe the silence as deathly quiet and I cannot even imagine what had happened to make the crying or screaming child become immediately so silent.”
Ms Spencer also described bangs from inside the Sharif’s flat like someone had been hit or smacked, the court was told.
She said she considered reporting it to social services but ultimately decided against it.
The key dates in Sara Sharif’s tragic death after alleged ‘campaign of abuse’
09:00 , Holly Evans
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif died after an alleged “campaign of abuse” in the home she shared with her father, stepmother and uncle.
A court heard on Tuesday that a “high pitched scream” was heard two days before the 10-year-old was killed and her family fled to Pakistan.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of his daughter’s murder alongside Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.
Read the full article here:
The key dates in Sara Sharif’s tragic death after alleged ‘campaign of abuse’
Stepmother of Sara Sharif requests ‘earliest possible’ flights after child’s death
08:00 , Holly Evans
Sara had suffered dozens of bruises, grazes and burns
07:00 , Holly Evans
Giving evidence on Wednesday, forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary said some of Sara’s external injuries, which included dozens of bruises, grazes and burns, were the result of “repetitive blunt trauma” and “blunt impact or solid pressure, or both.”
He told the court there were more than 71 injuries to the little girl’s body.
They included significant damage internally, including bleeding on her brain, multiple bruises on her lungs and multiple skeletal injuries, jurors heard.
Dr Cary presented his findings from a post-mortem examination of Sara’s body he carried out on August 15 2023 which took around three hours.
Sara had a height of 1.37 metres and a weight of 27 kilograms, with both measurements within the average bracket for a child her age but towards the lower end, the court heard.
Police bodycam footage from night Sara Sharif’s body was discovered
06:00 , Holly Evans
Pictured: Sara Sharif before her death
05:00 , Holly Evans
Sara Sharif’s father tells 999 operator he’s killed daughter
04:00 , Holly Evans
Pictured: Note allegedly found by Sara Sharif’s body
03:00 , Holly Evans
A note that was allegedly found by Sara Sharif’s body in her father’s handwriting has been pictured in court.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of his 10-year-old daughter’s murder alongside Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.
It is alleged within hours of her death the defendants had booked a flight out of the country.
Read the full article here:
Note allegedly found by Sara Sharif’s body: ‘Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter’
Stepmother of Sara Sharif requests ‘earliest possible’ flights after child’s death
01:00 , Holly Evans
The key dates in Sara Sharif’s tragic death after alleged ‘campaign of abuse’
Wednesday 23 October 2024 00:00 , Holly Evans
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif died after an alleged “campaign of abuse” in the home she shared with her father, stepmother and uncle.
A court heard on Tuesday that a “high pitched scream” was heard two days before the 10-year-old was killed and her family fled to Pakistan.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of his daughter’s murder alongside Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.
Read the full article here:
The key dates in Sara Sharif’s tragic death after alleged ‘campaign of abuse’
Sara had suffered injuries for up to three months before her death
Tuesday 22 October 2024 23:00 , Holly Evans
On Thursday, the court was shown X-rays of some of Sara’s injuries, including fractures in the fingers of her left hand and one in the u-shaped hyoid bone in her neck.
A pathologist, bone specialist Professor Anthony Freemont, told the court he had concluded the break in her neck had been caused “within the setting of neck compression” of which “the most common cause of these types of fractures is manual strangulation”.
He said that, according to his analysis, this injury was between six to 12 weeks old at the time of Sara’s death.
Professor Freemont said the two fractures in the girl’s fingers had occurred between 12 and 18 days before her death, based on his analysis of the stage of healing the injuries were at.
Of the injuries he examined, Professor Freemont said: “If you find fractures of different ages and different bones, there is a high likelihood they are non-accidental injuries.”
The pathologist went on to say that the bone marrow he examined from Sara’s body showed changes which could have been caused by starvation or “the rapid removal of all food”.
The previous day, jurors heard that another pathologist who carried out a post-mortem examination on Sara’s body gave the girl’s cause of death as “complications arising from multiple injuries and neglect”.
How did this happen to Sara Sharif? What we know about the events leading to schoolgirl’s death
Tuesday 22 October 2024 21:38 , Holly Evans
Schoolgirl Sara Sharif was hooded, restrained and beaten with a belt buckle and pole in a “campaign of abuse” lasting more than two years before her death, a court has heard.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of his 10-year-old daughter’s murder alongside Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29. All three deny murder and the defence is yet to mount its case.
Police found Sara’s body in a bunk bed in her family home in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August last year, with “disturbing” injuries that included bitemarks, scalding and broken bones.
Read the full article here:
What we know about the events leading to Sara Sharif’s death
Police bodycam footage from night Sara Sharif’s body was discovered
Tuesday 22 October 2024 20:21 , Holly Evans
Who was Sara Sharif?
Tuesday 22 October 2024 19:20 , Holly Evans
Over the last week, jurors at the Old Bailey have heard harrowing details of a “campaign of abuse” allegedly inflicted upon Sara Sharif in the months before she died.
She was discovered dead in a bed at the family home on Hammond Road in Woking, after her father Urfan Sharif called Surrey Police during the early hours of 10 August to report he had “beat her” as she was being “naughty”, and that she had died.
Upon finding her body, police also found a handwritten note by Sharif in which he confessed to killing her, and said that he was “running away” as he was scared.
A post-mortem examination found a catalogue of injuries across the 10-year-old, including more than 70 separate injuries, a traumatic brain injury, 25 fractures, a burn from an iron and scalding from hot water. She was also found with six suspected human bite marks.
Jurors heard that neighbours who resided next to the family had heard screaming and shouting coming from the property, and traces of Sara’s blood were discovered on items such as a cricket bat.
Her father, her stepmother Beinash Batool and her uncle Faisal Malik have all denied her murder.
ICYMI: Sara Sharif had suffered multiple fractures across 25 locations on her body
Tuesday 22 October 2024 18:45 , Holly Evans
Sara Sharif suffered 25 unexplained fractures in multiple locations across her body, as well as an “extremely rare” neck injury that a radiologist had never seen before in a child, a court has heard.
A skeletal scan had revealed ten fractures to her spine, as well as ones to her right clavicle, left and right scapular, to her spine and ribs, elbow and hands.
Professor Owen Arthurs, who conducted an examination of the 10-year-old’s body, concluded that these had been most likely caused by “multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks”.
Read the full article here:
Sara Sharif suffered multiple fractures across 25 locations on her body, court told
Welcome to our live coverage
Tuesday 22 October 2024 18:22 , Holly Evans
Welcome to our live coverage of the trial into the murder of Sara Sharif, which will resume on Wednesday with neighbours set to give evidence.
We’ll bring you all the latest updates
