A neighbour heard a “single high-pitched scream” of someone in pain two days before Sara Sharif was allegedly murdered, a court has been told.
Warning: This story contains details readers may find distressing
The 10-year-old was beaten with objects, strangled, tied up, burnt with an iron and bitten in the weeks before her death, the Old Bailey has heard.
Her body was found in an upstairs bedroom on a bottom bunk bed of her home in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August last year after her father Urfan Sharif, 42, called police and confessed to killing her after fleeing to Pakistan.
The minicab driver is on trial along with Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, where they deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The court has heard Sara suffered dozens of injuries, including bruising, burns and broken bones in a “brutal” campaign of abuse in the weeks leading up to her death on 8 August 2023.
Continuing the prosecution opening on the second day of the trial, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said one neighbour heard a “single high-pitched scream” two days earlier, which lasted a couple of seconds and stopped suddenly.
“It sounded to her like the scream of someone in pain and as she put it, ‘It didn’t sound good’,” he told the jury.
A neighbour at the family’s previous address said she had heard banging and rattling along with the sounds of a child crying or screaming, followed by a “deathly quiet” silence, the court heard.
Another said she would hear children screaming and a woman shouting: “Shut the f*** up” and “go to your room you f***ing bastard,” the prosecutor said.
She would also hear “shockingly loud” sounds of smacking followed by “gut-wrenching screams”, the court heard, and said Sara’s responsibilities included taking out the bins every week and hanging out the washing.
Prosecutors say that in January last year, Sara began to wear a hijab – the only member of her family to do so – to hide her injuries to her face and head from the outside world.
All three defendants are said to have played their part in the violence and mistreatment that resulted in Sara’s death before flying to Pakistan the following day.
Sharif dialled 999 in the early hours of 10 August last year, when he and the rest of his family were already thousands of miles away, telling police in a tearful eight-and-a-half minute call: “I’ve killed my daughter.”
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He also said: “I legally punished her, and she died,” adding “she was naughty”, and: “I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
The court heard the house’s Ring doorbell had been removed, while police found a note in his handwriting by her body, next to her pillow, which said “Love you Sara” on the first page.
“It’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I am running away because I am scared but I promise that I will hand over myself and take punishment,” it said.
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The jury was told Sharif will claim he made a “false confession” to protect his wife, who will say he was a “violent disciplinarian” who she was afraid of.
Malik, who worked part-time at McDonald’s, is expected to say he was not aware of the abuse.
The trial continues.
