Sara Sharif trial latest: Father admits lying to blame wife for tying and beating daughter before brutal death

Returning to the witness stand earlier today, Sharif admitted to not telling the truth during his previous evidence.

“I was wrong”, he responded when asked why he had not told the truth during his earlier evidence by Malik’s lawyer Michael Ivers KC.

“Wrong in what sense? Tell us some of the things that were wrong?”, Mr Ivers said. Sharif responded: “Everything was wrong.”

However, he insisted that his tearful response to questioning had been “real” and that his “pain” over his daughter’s death was genuine.

In a heated interaction, Mr Ivers KC said: “Your actions weren’t you mourning the loss of your daughter, it’s you seeking to persuade these 12 people of a pack of lies, isn’t it?

He responded: “I did lie. You can’t imagine my pain, I’m a bad dad, I’m a very bad dad but I’m still a father.”

Sara Sharif’s father has told jurors he “takes full responsibility” for the death of his 10-year-old daughter.

In a dramatic appearance at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, the taxi driver said “I accept every single thing” while his wife, Beinash Batool, sobbed in the dock.

During the early hours of 10 August last year, Mr Sharif had called Surrey Police after fleeing to Pakistan to say he had beaten his daughter “too much” for being “naughty”, and that she had died.

Read the full recap of a dramatic court session on Wednesday:

After his dramatic admission on Wednesday, Sharif asked for the murder charge against him to be put to him again but after a lunchbreak appeared to change his mind and insisted he was not guilty.

He told jurors: “I did not want to hurt her. I didn’t want to harm her.”

Ms Carberry responded: “But you did harm her. What did you intend when you took a cricket bat to a 10-year-old girl?”

The defendant said: “I did wrong. I didn’t think anything.”

Ms Carberry asked: “Do you accept that you killed her?”

Sharif said: “She died because of me. I didn’t want to kill her.”

Sara was found dead in a bunkbed at the family home in Woking, Surrey, last August 10, the day after her father, stepmother and uncle fled to Pakistan.

Urfan Sharif had phoned police on arrival at Islamabad and admitted he had beaten Sara “too much”, having left a written confession on a pillow beside her body.

A post-mortem examination found she had suffered dozens of injuries including at least 25 broken bones, human bite marks, and burns on her bottom and feet.

The defendants were arrested on a plane at Gatwick Airport when they returned to the UK last September 13.

Repeating his statement from yesterday, Sharif admitted: “She died because of me because I hit her.”

While being questioned by the prosecution, the 42-year-old backtracked on his admission yesterday that he had hit her repeatedly with a cricket bat, and said it had only occurred once.

However, he said he had hit her a “few times” on this occasions, and had previously beaten her with a metal pole.

“I have been nasty, I had been mean with my daughter,” he said.

Urfan Sharif has admitted that he was the “bad one” in the family, and claimed that Beinash Batool had attempted to stop him “many times”.

When asked about his dramatic change in position on Wednesday, which saw him take “full responsibility” for what had happened to Sara, Sharif responded: “I’ve been selfish blaming other people for something they didn’t do.”

In a tense exchange, Mr Emlyn-Jones said: “You started off trying to save yourself, you literally tried to get away with murder didn’t you?”

He responded: “The death of Sara yes.”

“It’s important for you to emphasise the death of Sara, you don’t like the word murder do you? You are still trying to get away with murder, aren’t you?” Mr Emlyn-Jones said.

“Because I didn’t want to kill her, I did not want to harm her,” Sharif responded.

Opening his questioning, Mr Emlyn-Jones KC began with a series of questioning about Sharif’s method of “disciplining” his children.

“You accept your parenting of Sara was impatient?” he said. “I don’t have the words to describe it,” he said.

“Unkind?,” he asked. “Yes sir.”

“Was it cruel?”, to which he agreed again.

“And it was violent?,” the prosecutor asked to which the taxi driver responded: “I’m not sure about that.”

“You’re not accepting your parenting of Sara was violent?” he was asked.

He subsequently responded his treatment of his daughter “was very bad”.

Prosecutor William Emlyn-Jones KC has begun to question Sara Sharif’s father.

In his final stage of cross-examination by his brother’s lawyer Michael Ivers KC, he insisted he had returned back to the UK in September 2023 for his daughter.

He agreed that he had not carried out his abuse in front of his brother, nor had they informed his parents in Pakistan of Sara’s abuse, as this would have “gone down like a lead balloon”.

Urfan Sharif has once again admitted responsibility for Sara Sharif’s death, after giving conflicting versions of events on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Under cross examination, he said that he had been aware of Sara’s injuries and the full extent of them once he was arrested and interviewed by the police.