1 week Ago By The Independent
after brutally beating her, as he stands trial for her murder. In a dramatic admission at the on Wednesday, Urfan Sharif, 42, told jurors “I accept every single thing”, while his wife and co-defendant, Beinash Batool, sobbed in the dock. The taxi driver confessed to hitting the schoolgirl with a cricket bat as she was bound with packaging tape as well as to repeatedly throttling her with his bare hand – and to hitting her with a metal pole as she lay dying.
Despite this, he continues to deny her murder, telling the court: “She died because of me. I didn’t want to kill her.” after fleeing to Pakistan to say he had beaten his daughter “too much” for being “naughty” and that she had died.
, who was found dead in a bunkbed at the family home in , Surrey, with a catalogue of serious injuries, including human bite marks and iron burns, the court has heard. Sharif, Batool, and Sara’s uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, all formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, Surrey, deny murder and causing or allowing the 10-year-old’s death and the trial continues. , Urfan Sharif occasionally bound his daughter with tape before beating her with a pole or cricket bat in the weeks leading up to her death in August 2023, the Old Bailey heard.
It was put to him that he bound Sara with tape, and he responded “yes ma’am”. Asked if he had used the brown packing tape that had been ordered from the family’s Amazon account that July, he said “yes ma’am”. Caroline Carberry KC, for Beinash Batool, asked Sharif if he had forced Sara to do squats while her ankles and wrists were bound with tape, to which he said “no ma’am.
No ma’am, that’s not right”. Sharif later added “I did beat her with a pole, but no sit-ups and squats”. He denied binding Sara in order to stop her from running away or try to defend herself.
, Sara Sharif’s father has confessed to killing the 10-year-old but insisted he did not mean to “harm” her as he continues to deny her murder. Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, had sought to blame Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, for a catalogue of injuries, claiming he was out at work when his daughter was being abused. On the seventh day of his evidence at the Old Bailey, he 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.
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