Footage of police storming inside Sara Sharif’s home just minutes after her father called and ‘confessed’ to her murder has been shown to jurors.
Urfan Sharif is accused of murdering his 10-year-old daughter at their home in Woking alongside her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29 before they fled to Pakistan last August. All three deny murder.
During the 999 call from Pakistan, which lasted eight minutes and 34 seconds, the taxi driver can be heard crying as he confessed to killing his daughter.
In the recording, Sharif said Sara had been ‘naughty’ over the last three to four weeks and he was ‘giving her punishment’ to ‘sort her out’, adding ‘I did something and she died’.
Officers rushed to the the family home in Surrey where they found the schoolgirl’s body under the covers of her bunk bed next to a handwritten note allegedly written by Urfan Sharif, MailOnline reports.
Footage shows officers racing to the family home in Surrey on blue lights in the early hours of the morning before tentatively approaching the house.
They shone torches into the downstairs window and knocked on the front door, with no response, before heading to the rear of the home and going inside through an unlocked door.
Once inside the eerily quiet home an officer repeatedly shouts ‘police, hello’ before the camera pans to a colleague who is putting on purple latex gloves.
The chilling footage ends as an officer walks up the stairs towards Sara’s room where the 10-year-old schoolgirl was found dead lying under the covers in her bunk bed.
Images reveal the words ‘I love you Sara’ before detailing the alleged confession, saying: ‘Whoever see this note its me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating.
‘I am running away because I am scared. But I promise that I will hand over myself and take punishment. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.’
He refused to reveal his location and saying he would hand himself in to Woking police station.
Earlier in the call, the operator can be heard asking Sharif ‘is everything okay?’ to which he responds: ‘Nothing is okay.’
At one point, Sharif can be heard getting so emotional that the operator says he cannot understand what he is saying and tells him to ‘take a deep breath’.
The Old Bailey also heard young Sara began to wear a hijab to school to ‘conceal injuries to her face and head’.
Today, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said evidence, including a soiled nappy, makeshift hoods, and a variety of potential weapons such as rolling pins and a cricket bat, suggested more than one adult was involved.
A post-mortem examination found Sara had suffered dozens of injuries including ‘probable human bite marks’, an iron burn and scalding from hot water.
There was also evidence that she had been restrained with her head covered with ‘homemade hoods’ comprised of parcel tape and plastic bags, jurors have heard.
Batool had blamed her husband Urfan Sharif for beating the 10-year-old ‘black’ in a series of WhatsApp messages dating back to 2019, the Old Bailey was told.
Batool messaged her sister in May 2021: ‘Urfan beat the crap out of Sara. She’s covered in bruises, literally beaten black. I feel really sorry for Sara, poor girl can’t walk. I really want to report him.’
In the summer of 2022, the court heard Batool complained that she could not cover up the bruises, saying: ‘He beat Sara up yesterday and I can’t send her to school on Monday looking like that.’
Neighbour Chloe Redwin noticed the child had started to wear a hijab in January 2023, which she said was unusual, the court heard.
Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC told the court Chloe said she had never seen Sara or her mother wear a hijab before.
The family moved to Hammond Road in April 2023 where another neighbour, Brenin Lozeron, said Sara was ‘always’ wearing the head covering that ‘mostly hid her face’.
Mr Emlyn Jones continued: ‘It struck him as unusual that Sara was the only family member to be dressed in that way.
‘The prosecution suggest that the fact that Sara began to wear the hijab at around this time is indicative of the need to conceal injuries to her face and head from the outside world.’
Yesterday, the court heard Sara’s father called 999 from Pakistan to say he had ‘legally punished her’ and she had died.
Jurors heard he also left a note next to 10-year-old Sara’s body reading: ‘I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it’.
In a 999 call at 2:47am on August 10, 2023, taxi driver Sharif said: ‘I’ve killed my daughter. I’ve legally punished her and she died.’
Sharif was crying so much that the operator told him to ‘take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened’, the court heard.
Asked for further details, it was heard he told the operator: ‘I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her but I beat her up too much.’
Sharif then fled to Pakistan alongside Batool and Malik, where they spent more than a month following Sara’s death.
They were arrested on September 13 last year at Gatwick Airport having flown back from Dubai.
A post-mortem revealed Sara had suffered ‘multiple and extensive injuries’ over a ‘sustained and extended’ period of time.
Sara had probably died on August 8, two days before Urfan called police.
She was being home schooled in the months leading up to her death, and before that was a pupil at St Mary’s Church of England primary school in Byfleet.
The trial continues.
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