"I take the full responsibility.”
Sara Sharif’s father has said he takes “full responsibility” for the 10-year-old’s death and admitted beating her with a cricket bat and a white metal pole.
Urfan Sharif told the Old Bailey he accepted everything that he had told police in a 999 call and a handwritten confession after his daughter’s death.
During cross-examination by his wife, Beinash Batool’s barrister Caroline Carberry KC, he was asked:
“Did you kill your daughter by beating?”
He replied: “Yes, she died because of me.”
Sharif, Batool and his brother Faisal Malik are accused of carrying out a violent “campaign of abuse” before Sara was found dead in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on August 10, 2023.
The defendants allegedly killed Sara before fleeing to Pakistan, from where Sharif called police to say he had “beat her up too much”.
He had left a handwritten “confession” near her fully clothed body saying:
“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”
As Sharif was set to be cross-examined, he said:
“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.”
Ms 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?”
He replied: “Yes ma’am.”
She asked: “Do you accept inflicting all the injuries?”
Sharif replied: “Not the burn marks, not the bite marks. Not the head bruises, not the bruises to her face.”
When asked what he was accepting, Sharif said:
“I take the full responsibility.”
Ms Carberry asked: “Would it help you if we looked at the injuries graphic?”
Sharif replied: “No. I can’t look at that, I can’t look at that.”
She asked: “Do you accept causing the fractures to you little girl’s body?” He said: “Yes.”
Ms Carberry asked: “Do you accept causing those fractures by hitting her with something?” He replied: “Yes.”
Ms Carberry asked: “Did you use the cricket bat to inflict those injuries on her?” He replied: “Yes, ma’am.”
She went on:
“Did you use the white metal pole to cause those linear marks we can see to her abdomen and legs?”
He replied: “Yes, ma’am.”
She also asked: “Did you injure her neck causing the break to her hyoid bone?” He replied: “I don’t know how that happened.”
Ms Carberry also asked him about a video shown to jurors in which Sara can be seen dancing two days before she was allegedly killed.
She said: “We know from the material we have that on 6 August, two days before she died, she was walking and dancing and moving around in front of the television and something happened to her after that; and I’m going to suggest to you this is what happened after that on the night of 6 August: you badly beat your daughter, do accept that?”
Sharif replied: “I accept everything.”
Ms Carberry probed: “Do you accept on the night of 6 August you badly beat your daughter?” He replied: “I accept everything.”
Batool left the dock sobbing and the trial was suspended.
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