Sara Sharif had suffered multiple fractures across 25 locations on her body, court told
A radiologist told jurors that he had ‘never seen’ a hyoid bone fracture in a child before
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Sara Sharif suffered 25 unexplained fractures in multiple locations across her body, as well as an “extremely rare” neck injury that a radiologist had never seen before in a child, a court has heard.
A skeletal scan had revealed ten fractures to her spine, as well as ones to her right clavicle, left and right scapular, to her spine and ribs, elbow and hands.
Professor Owen Arthurs, who conducted an examination of the 10-year-old’s body, concluded that these had been most likely caused by “multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks”.
Jurors had previously been told that the schoolgirl had suffered more than 70 injuries before she was found dead on 10 August last year at her home in Woking, Surrey.
This included probable human bite marks, scalding from hot water, a burn from a domestic iron, as well as skeletal injuries and bleeding on the brain.
Her father, Urfan Sharif, 42, her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, have all been charged with her murder and are currently on trial at the Old Bailey.
On Friday, consultant paediatric radiologist Professor Arthurs told jurors: “My opinion of most of the fractures in this case… were that they were very unusual and they cannot be explained by an accidental mechanism nor can they be explained as any single high impact trauma event.”
When questioned by the prosecution about a particular fracture in Sara’s hyoid, a u-shaped bone at the top of her neck, he said it was “extremely rare” to see such an injury.
He added: “I have not ever seen a hyoid fracture in a child even in those where we have a very good history of ligature strangulation (hanging).
“The most likely case here is manual strangulation with a degree of force above that which we would commonly recognise in ligature strangulation – meaning hanging.”
Of the fractures in her spine, Prof Arthurs said these kinds of injuries were usually caused by road traffic accidents or a fall from height, and were likely caused by “high velocity impact or multiple trauma”.
He said that there was no evidence that she had been suffering from any underlying bone abnormality or any diseases.
“My opinion is that the most likely explanation for the constellation of injuries – including location, pattern, severity, healing pattern and some refractures – are multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks.”
Many of these different fractures are estimated to have occurred in the weeks leading up to her death, with the hyoid bone believed to have fractured between six to 12 weeks before 8 August.
Earlier in the trial, jurors heard that a pathologist who carried out a post-mortem examination on Sara’s body gave the girl’s cause of death as “complications arising from multiple injuries and neglect”.
Sara was discovered by officers during the early hours of the morning, after her father called Surrey Police from Pakistan to say he had “beat her up too much”.
It is alleged Sara had died two days before and the defendants had booked flights out of the country within hours of her death.
A note was also found next to her pillow allegedly from Sharif, 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.”
Traces of the schoolgirl’s blood were discovered on the kitchen floor, a vacuum cleaner and a cricket bat following a police search of the family home along with “homemade hoods” used to restrain her, the prosecution said.
All three 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.
The trial continues.