WhatsApp messages read to a court yesterday have revealed the horrific abuse Sara Sharif was subjected to by her father.
Jurors heard how Sara, who was allegedly beaten to death by her father Urfan Sharif, 42, on August 9 2023, was abused to the point that she couldn’t walk.
Messages sent on WhatsApp by Urfan’s wife, Beinash Batool, 30, reveal the extent of the violent abuse Sara allegedly suffered.
In one exchange with her sister on 12 February 2022, Batool let her know that Urfan had just arrived home. Her sister wrote: ‘It’s okay. Just ignore. In one ear out the other.’
Batool then told her: ‘He’s beating Sara too.’
‘Why. He’s not okay,’ the sister replied.
To which Batool wrote: ‘Cause she’s being naughty. Sara has anxiety. Whatever she eats she vomits out.
‘She’s a child, I think grown ups need to understand.’
She wrote later on in the exchange: ‘If something happens to Sara I won’t forgive myself.’
In other messages read out to court, Batool told of Urfan beating ‘the crap out of’ Sara, and beating ‘her up like crazy.’ The 10-year-old was reportedly ‘beaten black’ on one occasion.
In further shocking messages, Batool alleges that Sara was forced to ‘do sit ups all night’ after she had cut up all of Urfan’s clothes.
On August 9, 2023, Sara was found dead in her bunk bed by police at the family home in Woking, Surrey.
The 10-year-old had suffered more than 70 external injuries including ten spinal fractures, fractures to her collarbone, shoulder blades, arms, hands, three fingers, wrist bones, two ribs and her neck.
Left next to Sara’s bed was a note which read: ‘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 before I was scared.’
The court was shown CCTV footage captured just hours before Sara’s body was discovered showing Urfan, Batool and his brother, 29-year-old Faisal Malik, at Heathrow Airport before boarding a flight to Pakistan.
The footage captured the family arriving at the airport in a BMW X5 and then passing through airport security at approximately 1.22pm, before the flight took off at 2.
Jurors heard how shortly after their plane landed in Islamabad, Urfan confessed to the killing of his daughter during an eight-minute call.
He is said to have told police that his daughter was ‘naughty’, adding: ‘I beat her up it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.’
Urfan, Batool and Malik were all arrested when they returned to London Gatwick Airport on September 13 last year.
Urfan reportedly had a history of violence in the house, with Batool noting that as early as 2020, her husband was going on ‘rampages.’
Batool described an ‘anger attack’ after Irfan took Sara to a play centre.
In the weeks leading up to Sara’s death, Urfan was apparently on a ‘brutal’ campaign of violence in the house.
All three of them deny murder and the trial is ongoing.
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