Father confesses to beating 10-year-old Sara Sharif to death, say UK police

DNA

LONDON: The father of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl who was found dead in her home in Britain, told police “I beat her up too much”, prosecutors said at his murder trial on Monday.

Sara was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London, after what prosecutors say was a campaign of “serious and repeated violence”.

Her father Urfan Sharif, 42, his wife and Sara Sharif’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and the girl’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at London’s Old Bailey court charged with her murder.

The trio are alternatively charged with causing or allowing the death of a child. All three deny the charges against them and blame each other for her death, prosecutors say.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors on the first day of the trial on Monday that Urfan Sharif called British police, having fled to Pakistan after Sara’s death.

“He used what you may think is an odd expression,” Jones said. “He said: ‘I legally punished her and she died’.”

Jones said that Urfan also told police: “I beat her up. It wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”