Sara Sharif murder trial latest: Radiologist had never seen 10-year-old’s ‘very rare’ injury on child before

Jurors have been shown a number of X-ray scans which showed fractures in certain areas of Sara Sharif’s body, including her right and left scapular.

“I can’t think of an accidental way in which you could fracture both scapulars at the same time,” Professor Arthurs said.

Referring to an injury to her right arm, he said: “In very young children when you twist the bone you can easily break the outside before you break the bone itself. I don’t think that applies here because Sara is 10. I just think it’s more likely there has been blunt force trauma.”

The Old Bailey were also shown a bruise that had calcified in her arm, which suggested it had not been given time to heal or had repeatedly come into contact with direct impact.

“It takes at least three to four weeks for a bruise to turn to calcification. In my view this injury is somewhere between four to eight weeks old,” he said.

Detailing her injuries, Professor Owen Arthurs described them as “unusual” and said they could not have occurred by accident or in a single event.

Asked for his professional opinion, he told jurors: “Many fractures can occur accidentally and many fractures can occur from a single event but in my opinion, most of the fractures in this case were very unusual and they cannot be explained by an accidental mechanism nor can they be explained by a single high impact trauma event.

“My opinion is that the most likely explanation for the constellation of injuries, including location and pattern, is multiple episodes of blunt force trauma impacted over several weeks.”

The Old Bailey had previously heard that Sara had suffered more than 70 injuries before her death, which had included bitemarks, burns and scalding.

Sara Sharif had suffered “multiple unexplained fractures in 25 locations on the body”, a report by a paediatric radiologist had concluded.

Professor Owen Arthurs told the court that he had undertaken a skeletal survey which included an X-ray of every bone in her body followed by a CT scan.

He said that she had suffered “multiple injuries”, including fractures to her hyoid, right clavicle, left and right scapular, to her spine and ribs, elbow and hands.

The trial of Sara Sharif’s father Urfan Sharif, stepmother Beinash Batool and uncle Faisal Malik has resumed.

Jurors are due to hear evidence from paediatric radiologist Professor Owen Arthurs.

Sara Sharif’s father cried as he confessed to killing his daughter in a phone call to police from Pakistan, a court has heard.

Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of murdering 10-year-old Sara alongside her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.

On Thursday, jurors were played a recording of the eight-and-a-half-minute phone call Sharif made to the police non-emergency 101 number on 2.47am on August 10 2023, two days after Sara died.

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Giving evidence on Wednesday, forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary said some of Sara’s external injuries, which included dozens of bruises, grazes and burns, were the result of “repetitive blunt trauma” and “blunt impact or solid pressure, or both.”

He told the court there were more than 71 injuries to the little girl’s body.

They included significant damage internally, including bleeding on her brain, multiple bruises on her lungs and multiple skeletal injuries, jurors heard.

Dr Cary presented his findings from a post-mortem examination of Sara’s body he carried out on August 15 2023 which took around three hours.

Sara had a height of 1.37 metres and a weight of 27 kilograms, with both measurements within the average bracket for a child her age but towards the lower end, the court heard.

Sara Sharif showed signs of starvation or the “rapid removal of food”, according to a pathologist who discovered an unusual indicator in her bone marrow, a jury was told.

A trial at the Old Bailey also heard how the 10-year-old schoolgirl had likely been strangled until a bone in her neck had broken, up to three months before she died last August.

It was one of many injuries the young girl suffered in an alleged “campaign of abuse”, which also included burns, broken bones and extensive bruising.

Read the full article from today’s court proceedings here: