Sara Sharif death: Father ‘takes full responsibility’ for daughter’s death

Sara Sharif began to wear a hijab to school in the last part of her life. The prosecution have said no other women in her family wore the hijab and the garment was intended to conceal injuries. Photo / Surrey Police

The father of Sara Sharif has told jurors he “takes full responsibility” for the death of his 10-year-old daughter.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, made the admission under cross-examination as his wife Beinash Batool, 30, sobbed in the dock of the Old Bailey on Wednesday.

Previously, Sharif had sought to blame Batool for killing his daughter but in a dramatic admission, he told jurors: “I accept every single thing.”

Sara was found dead at the family home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year after the defendants fled to Pakistan.

The 10-year-old suffered dozens of injuries including human bite marks and iron burns, jurors have heard.

Sharif, Batool and Sara’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, formerly of Hammond Rd, Woking, deny Sara’s murder and causing or allowing her death.

Cross-examining for Batool, Caroline Carberry KC had asked Sharif about a note he left beside the body of his daughter before leaving for Pakistan.

In it, he wrote “love you Sara” on the first page followed by the words: “Whoever see this note it’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating.”

Carberry asked if he did indeed kill his daughter by beating and Sharif replied: “Yes, she died because of me.”

The barrister said: “In the weeks before she died she suffered multiple fractures to her body, didn’t she, and it was you who inflicted those injuries?”

The defendant replied: “Yes.”

Sharif accepted causing the injuries, bar burn and bite marks and added: “I take responsibility. I take full responsibility.”

He admitted causing fractures to Sara by hitting her with a cricket bat or pole.

Asked if he broke Sara’s hyoid neck bone, he repeated: “I can take full responsibility. I accept every single thing.”

Urfan Sharif. Photo / Surrey Police

Carberry went on: “I suggest on the night of the 6th of August you badly beat Sara.”

Speaking barely above a whisper in the witness box, Sharif replied: “I accept everything.”

‘I wasn’t thinking’

But following a lunch break, Sharif maintained he was not guilty of murder and told jurors he did not “intend” to harm or kill his daughter.

Addressing the defendant, Carberry KC said: “You understood and you still understand that by accepting that you beat Sara to death and in doing so you intended to do her really serious harm you are guilty of murder?”

In response, Sharif said: “No. I did not want to hurt her. I didn’t want to harm her.”

Carberry said: “But you did harm her. What did you intend when you took a cricket bat to a 10-year-old girl?”

Sharif then became tearful, as he said: “I did wrong. I didn’t think anything. I wasn’t thinking.”

The barrister said: “Do you accept that you killed her?”

He said: “She died because of me. I didn’t want to kill her.”

Carberry then asked if Sharif accepted that his beating of her caused her death, to which he responded, “Yes.”

Later in the hearing, he admitted he had repeatedly hit Sara over the head with a mobile phone around a month before her death.

Sharif denies murder and causing or allowing Sara’s death along with Batool and his brother Faisal Malik.