Sara Sharif trial: Gory details emerge from father’s confession, ‘I killed her with cricket bat’

More than an year after his daughter Sara Sharif’s death, Urfan Sharif on Wednesday took “full responsibility” for the 10-year-old’s death and admitted in court that he struck her across the abdomen with a metal pole as she lay dying.

According to The Guardian report, Urfan also admitted to strangling Sara and hitting her with a cricket bat while her ankles and wrists were bound with packing tape in the weeks leading up to her death.

Sharif, 42, his wife Beinash Batool, 30, and Sharif’s brother Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial, accused of carrying a violent “campaign of abuse” before Sara was found dead in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August 2023.

Urfan told the jury that he fully accepted everything he had stated to police during a 999 call and in a handwritten confession after his daughter’s death, added the report.

“I admit what I said in my phone call and my written note. Every single word,” he said, confirming his role in Sara’s abuse.

During cross-examination by Caroline Carberry KC, the barrister representing his wife, Batool, Urfan was asked, “Did you kill your daughter by beating her?” He responded, “Yes, she died because of me.”

He also admitted to beating Sara “severely” over several weeks, explaining that he had been angry because the schoolgirl had started soiling herself and vomiting.

The accused is believed to have killed Sara on 8 August before fleeing to Pakistan. From there, Sharif contacted the police, admitting that he had “beat her up too much.”

He also left a handwritten note near her fully clothed body, which read: “I swear to God my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”

A post-mortem examination revealed that Sara had suffered fractures and 71 external injuries, including burns and human bite marks.

Although Urfan had consistently denied any involvement in his daughter’s death while testifying at the Old Bailey, he unexpectedly said, just before the third day of cross-examination, “I want to say something.”

“I want to admit that it’s all my fault. I want the court to consider my full note and confession. That I admit what I said in my phone call and my written note, every single word,” The Guardian quoted him as saying_._

Carberry asked, “In the weeks before she died, she suffered multiple fractures to her body, didn’t she, and it was you who inflicted those injuries, wasn’t it?”

“Yes ma’am,” replied Sharif, but he denied inflicting burns and bite marks and causing bruising to the head and face.

When asked by Carberry if it would help to look at a graphic of the injuries, Sharif said, “No. I can’t look at that.”

Urfan admitted using a cricket bat and a white metal pole to inflict multiple fractures and other visible injuries on Sara, but denied knowing how she suffered a neck injury that caused her hyoid bone to break.

Carberry then showed the jury a video of Sara dancing two days before her death, asking Sharif, “She was moving around in front of the TV, and then something happened. On the night of 6 August, you badly beat your daughter. Do you accept that?”

Sharif replied, “I accept everything.”

Batool, visibly distressed, left the dock, and the trial was briefly suspended. When Sharif returned to the stand, he acknowledged taking full responsibility for Sara’s death, admitting that he killed her by beating and intended to cause her serious harm.

Carberry pressed, “You’ve pleaded not guilty to murder. Do you want that charge put to you again?” He responded, “Yes, ma’am.”

Sharif maintained he was not guilty of murder, claiming he did not intend to kill Sara and that the beatings were meant as “just discipline.”

He admitted hitting Sara in the face in March 2023 after she was sick at the breakfast table and preventing her from going to school because of her injuries. He also admitted to home-schooling her after a beating in April 2023.

Sharif said he started hitting Sara with a mobile phone three or four weeks before her death, and began using the cricket bat and metal pole two or three weeks prior. He accepted tightening his hands around her neck on multiple occasions but couldn’t remember when.

Sharif admitted to beating Sara while her wrists and ankles were bound with packing tape. Carberry asked, “You accept beating her with the pole and cricket bat when she couldn’t move her legs or arms?” He replied, “Yes ma’am.”

Sharif later said he did not beat Sara on 6 August but he admitted hitting her as she lay dying two days later.

Carberry suggested that Sharif grabbed the metal pole when he arrived home on 8 August after Batool called him to say something was wrong with Sara.

“You said to Beinash that Sara was just pretending, that she was just acting up, and you took, I suggest, the metal pole that you had taken upstairs and you gave her a couple of whacks with it on her abdomen, didn’t you?” Carberry asked.

Sharif agreed but claimed the pole was already upstairs. Carberry said Sharif refused Batool’s pleas to call an ambulance, saying, “It was very clear that Sara was very, very unwell and, as we now know, dying.”

All three accused have denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023 as the trial continues.