Sara Sharif trial latest: Father shakes head as he admits taping up daughter then beating her with metal pole

The trial has adjourned until Monday and will resume at midday.

Sara Sharif’s father denied her battered body was stripped and jetwashed in the garden as the family prepared to flee to Pakistan.

The 10-year-old was wearing clean clothes when her body was found in a bunkbed at the family home in Woking, Surrey, after Sharif called police on arrival in Islamabad, the Old Bailey has heard.

Her soiled leggings and nappy were discarded in the garden near a jetwash with packaging tape and hoods in the bin, jurors were told.

Mr Emlyn Jones suggested the evidence showed she was then taken into the garden, stripped of her dirty leggings and nappy and cleaned.

He asked: “She wasn’t in the garden? You haven’t taken her to the shed? You had a lot to do to tidy up, the house was left immaculately tidy and the bin was full of packing tape, various hoods. And the body of Sara was cleaned, wasn’t it?

“She wasn’t in the clothes she died in when you left the house, so she had been cleaned and washed?

“There was a jetwash out in the garden with her dirty clothes and the rest of the rubbish. Those are the leggings Sara died in, entwined with a filthy nappy, bundled up with two towels, soaking wet.”

Sharif had told jurors he only cleaned Sara’s head and did not remove her clothes.

The trial has adjourned for the lunch break and will continue at 2pm.

Addressing Sharif in the witness box, Naeem Mian KC said: “A couple of days ago now you stood up there and you said to the jury and his Lordship that I have something to say before any questions were put to you. Do you remember doing that?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“And then you switched from plan A to plan B. Just to take it broadly, plan A was to blame your wife Batool.

“And now plan B, you have stood there day after day and said ‘I take responsibility, I’m to blame, it was all me, it was nothing to do with Batool, it was nothing to do with Faisal’. Can you help us please with this; everybody may be wondering why you have suddenly after six days start saying it’s my responsibility?”

Sharif responded: “She was my daughter. I’ve been nasty, I’ve been mean with her. I couldn’t care for her, I didn’t do what a father should have done and I’ll take responsibility for everything.”

He did however deny causing the bite marks, the burn injuries and placing a hood over her face.

Taking questions from his own lawyer, Urfan Sharif said “didn’t know” when the last time he beat his daughter before hitting her on the Tuesday.

He repeatedly denied beating her over the previous weekend, despite post-mortem evidence showing that she had suffered a traumatic brain injury.

He also denied placing the white pole which he used to strike her in an outbuilding in the garden.

Prosecutor William Emlyn-Jones KC has finished his cross-examination of Urfan Sharif.

His own lawyer Naeem Mian KC is set to ask his client a further set of questions, after his admissions on Wednesday.

Urfan Sharif has denied that Beinash Batool had previously assaulted Sara as she lay dying, before calling him to ask him to return home from his work shift.

“Was the pole already in the room because before you got back, she had already been assaulted by the pole for ‘pretending’ to be ill and you came in and took over as you had done before?,” Mr Emlyn-Jones asked.

“Sara is being disciplined but sometimes the big stick is required so then you get the call, ‘she’s being naughty, she’s your daughter’, is that why the pole was in the room and you beat her while she was dying?”

“I didn’t know she was dying,” he responded.

During this exchange, the prosecutor accused Sharif of looking at Beinash Batool in the dock.

Sara Sharif’s father maintained that he had only beaten his daughter twice with a metal pole on her abdomen on the Tuesday evening while she lay dying, and had not assaulted her in the previous days.

“That weekend she suffered a brain injury from blunt force trauma to her head,” Mr Emlyn Jones KC said. “She had suffered a concusion which was at least 48 hours old, which takes us to Sunday evening and leads us to the weekend.”

“That’s not right sir,” he responded.

He also claimed that he was only inside the property for a few minutes after returning from work before Sara passed away.

“You didn’t do anything to help her did you? Three adults in that house, all with telephones, any one of them could take Sara to the hospital,” the prosecutor said.

He admitted he had lied about Batool insisting they did not contact the emergency services, and said he was “scared” when deciding to flee to Pakistan.

“None of you wanted the police anywhere near the place,” Mr Emlyn-Jones said.

Urfan Sharif has been accused of “manipulating” the evidence in the case, after leaving his phone in Pakistan which could not be examined by police officers.

Reading out one of the few messages available from Sharif to his wife, it read: “Sara cut my laces. You and Sara have made my life. Once she is at home, sort her out before I do.”

“Do you agree that single sentence gives us an insight into Sara’s nightmare existence?”, he was asked. “Yes sir,” he responded.

“It’s the only message we have from you to your wife about Sara because we haven’t got your phones isn’t it?, Mr Emlyn-Jones said. “There would be tons of these wouldn’t there?

“You were discussing it in those messages but when you went to Pakistan you made sure those phones didn’t come and we are denied the treasure trove of what those messages would reveal to us.

“It is another way in which you have manipulated the case to try and make it go to your advantage, get rid of the evidence of those phones, the photos and videos.”

Sharif denied those allegations.

Beinash Batool has been accused of trying to help her husband cover up his violent abuse of Sara, to ensure that he didn’t “get busted”.

Referring to a text message Batool sent her sister in May 2022 which read “He beat her up yesterday. I can’t send her to school looking like that”, the prosecutor claimed they had been conspiring together to maintain the abuse.

“You’re conspiring together aren’t you, to keep your violent treatment a secret from the rest of the world?”, Mr Emlyn-Jones asked. “I was wrong sir,” he responded.

Referring to Sharif’s repeated claims last week that his wife was a “psycho”, the prosecutor said: “It’s very easy to blame Beinash Batool if she was being every bit as bad as you.”