Father and stepmother found guilty of Sara Sharif murder

The father and stepmother of Sara Sharif have been found guilty of the 10 year old's murder.

Her uncle, Faisal Malik, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death.

Sara was found dead in a bunkbed at her home in Woking, on the 10th of August 2023, after her father alerted police from Pakistan saying he had "beat her up too much".

A post-mortem examination found Sara had suffered dozens of injuries including "probable human bite marks", an iron burn and scalding from hot water

Sentencing will be carried out next week.

A 'campaign of abuse'

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.

Traces of the 10-year-old's blood were discovered on the kitchen floor, a vacuum cleaner and a cricket bat following a police search of the family home.

The prosecution has alleged that Sara was taken out of school and wore a hijab to hide the injuries to her face and head.

"She died because of me"

On the seventh day of his evidence at the Old Bailey, Urfan Sharif told jurors he took "full responsibility" for what happened but did not intend to hurt his daughter.

He went on to admit hitting Sara with a cricket bat as she was bound with packaging tape.

He repeatedly throttled her with his bare hands, breaking the hyoid bone in her neck, and battered her over the head with a mobile phone, he said.

He denied burning her buttocks with an iron, biting her arm or tightening a belt around her neck, the Old Bailey heard.

But even as Sara lay collapsed and dying in Batool's lap last August 8, he continued the years-long campaign of abuse, jurors were told.

Sharif asked for the murder charge against him to be put to him again but after a lunchbreak appeared to change his mind and insisted he was not guilty.

He told jurors: "I did not want to hurt her.

"I didn't want to harm her."

Ms Carberry responded: "But you did harm her. What did you intend when you took a cricket bat to a 10-year-old girl?"

The defendant said: "I did wrong. I didn't think anything."

Ms Carberry asked: "Do you accept that you killed her?"

Sharif said: "She died because of me. I didn't want to kill her."

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