The murder-accused father of 10-year-old Sara Sharif has told a jury his world was “crushed” when he realised his daughter had died after his wife told him she was only being “dramatic”.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, told jurors he found his daughter collapsed after his wife Beinash Batool called him home from work on the evening of 8 August last year.
Sharif is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of Sara’s murder, along with Sara’s stepmother Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29.
Recounting the moment he held Sara’s lifeless body in his arms, he told jury members: “I was numb. My world crushed, the whole world has fallen on me.”
Giving evidence on Friday, Sharif said Sara was “limp” on Batool’s lap in a bedroom by the time he returned to their home in Woking, Surrey.
His wife had claimed Sara was being “dramatic” and “pretending” not to get up after she fell on the stairs while being “silly” with another child, the court was told.
Sharif said: “I tapped her face, asked Sara to get up, but she didn’t get up so I took Sara from Batool’s lap and tapped her again.
“She opened her eyes, said she is thirsty, needs water, and she’s feeling sleepy.”
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He said he shouted for water and his wife gave him some but Sara – who was found by a post-mortem examination to have suffered dozens of injuries, including burns from an iron, human bite marks and signs of restraint – didn’t drink it.
“She did not wake up, she was sleeping,” Sharif said.
Sharif went on: “I shouted for (an) ambulance because I could not hear breathing. I checked the pulse and there was none.
“I started giving her CPR. I was numb, like I am now. I was shocked.”
About 10 minutes later, Sharif said he asked Batool where the ambulance was, but she told him “there is no need because she’s dead”.
He told jurors he did not call emergency services himself because Batool “snatched” the phone from him and told him he should protect the family.
The defendant said he was “shocked” to see a red mark on Sara before Batool explained the other child had beaten and stamped on her.
Sharif said he wrote a letter confessing to killing her daughter and left it beside Sara’s body so he could “take the blame”.
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But it was Batool who instructed him to say in the note that he had “lost it”, he said.
Later that night, flights were booked for the family to travel to Pakistan the following day.
Police found Sara’s body after Sharif called from Islamabad on 10 August.
The defendants were detained on their return to the UK on 13 September last year.
They deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023.