'I beat her up too much!' Sara Sharif's dad's chilling confession to police after fleeing to Pakistan

Her father Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of her murder - a charge they have all denied.

Opening the trial earlier today, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones said the trio had been involved in a "campaign of abuse" against the 10-year-old.

Emlyn Jones detailed how police found Sara's body in a bunk bed in her home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year after her father called police at 2.47am and confessed to killing her.

Sharif, a taxi driver, had been crying so much that the operator told him to "take a deep breath and tell me what's happened", the court heard.

During the nearly-10-minute call from Pakistan, he told the operator: "I've killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died."

He went on to say that "she was naughty", adding: "I beat her up... It wasn't my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much."

But Emlyn Jones told the Old Bailey that the girl's post-mortem revealed that her father's claim to have beaten up his daughter came "nowhere near to describing the extent of the violence and physical abuse Sara had suffered" over a period of weeks.

He said: "Sara had not just been beaten up. Her treatment, certainly in the last few weeks of her life, had been appalling. It had been brutal.

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"And throughout, these three defendants were the adults living in the house where Sara had lived, where she had suffered, and where she had died."

The examination found there were five bite marks on Sara's lower left arm and one to her inner thigh which indicated the "teeth had been dragged across the surface and with central bruising, probably the result of suction", the court heard.

Her other injuries included trauma to her ribs, shoulder blades, fingers, 11 separate fractures to the spine, and marks on her feet and ankles implying she had been restrained.

On arrival at Hammond Road, police found the property was quiet, very tidy and seemingly empty before discovering the body next to a note in her father's handwriting, Emlyn Jones said.

The note allegedly stated: "It's me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it. I am running away because I am scared."

The prosecutor told jurors that evidence would show Sara died last August 8, two days before she was found.

The next day, the whole family fled Britain by plane, landing in Pakistan on August 10, meaning Sharif was thousands of miles away when he made the call to police.

The court heard Sara was thought to have died on the evening of last August 8, as a child sent an "urgent" WhatsApp message to a friend at 8.38pm to say she had "just passed away".

Half an hour later, Batool and Sharif set about booking flights to Pakistan the next day, Emlyn Jones said.

He told the jury that all three defendants "played their part" in the violence - and it was "inconceivable" that one of them could have acted alone.

Addressing the jury, Emlyn Jones said: "Ask yourselves, how could just one person have carried out so much abuse, so many assaults, without the others knowing about it and witnessing it with their own eyes?

"If any one of them was not a part of it, but had seen it, why then was nothing done to stop it, or report it?"

He continued: "Each of them denies that they were the one responsible for any of that violence and abuse.

"Each of them seeks to deflect the blame onto one or both of the others, to shift responsibility away from themselves, onto someone else. In other words, they are pointing the finger at each other."

Jurors were also told how Urfan Sharif's defence saw him accuse his wife, Batool, of being responsible for Sara's death and his confession was false to protect her.

While Batool accused Sharif of being a violent disciplinarian and said she was fearful of her husband, Emlyn Jones told the court.

Malik's case is that whoever was responsible it was not him and he was unaware of what was going on, the prosecutor added.

The defendants, of Hammond Road in Woking, have denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16, 2022 and August 9, 2023 - and their trial before Justice Cavanagh is due to continue until December 13.