Sara Sharif's sobbing dad called 999 and said 4 chilling words after girl found dead in bed

Sara Sharif's body was discovered under a blanket in a bunk bed upstairs at her home in Woking, Surrey, last year after the 10-year-old suffered a "campaign of abuse"

The father of murdered ten-year-old Sara Sharif called police from Pakistan, sobbing: "I've killed my daughter", the Old Bailey has heard.

Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 28, went on trial today charged with her murder.

Sara's body was discovered under a blanket in a bunk bed upstairs at her home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year, the court heard. She had suffered a "campaign of abuse" in the weeks before her death, leaving her with dozens of injuries, including broken bones "old and new", burns and extensive bruising, the court heard.

The three defendants, who had lived with Sara in the house, travelled to Pakistan, the day before her body was found.

Opening the case, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said Sharif, a taxi driver, called Surrey Police at 2.47am on August 10, last year. Playing a recording of the eight-and-a-half-minute conversation to the jury, Mr Emlyn Jones said: "In that call, Urfan Sharif began by asking the operator to take down his address. It sounds like he is crying.

"The operator interrupted and said 'take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened'. 999 operators are used to hearing all kinds of dreadful things, but this one cannot have expected the answer he got to that question. Urfan Sharif told him 'I’ve killed my daughter'.

"He used an odd expression, he said: 'I legally punished her, and she died.' He added 'she was naughty', and then 'I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much'."

Mr Emlyn Jones added: "Sara had not just been beaten up. Her treatment, certainly in the last few weeks of her life, had been appalling; it had been brutal.

"And throughout, these three defendants were the adults living in the house where Sara had lived; where she had suffered; and they had been living where she had died."

Police officers went to the house and found Sara, who had died on August 8, the court heard.

Mr Elmlyn Jones said: "In an upstairs bedroom, on a bottom bunk bed, the police found the body of a little girl, lying in bed, under the cover, as if asleep. But she was not asleep. She was dead. Her name was Sara Sharif, and she had been just ten years old when she was killed."

A note found next to Sara's body in Urfan Sharif’s handwriting echoed what he had said in the emergency call, the prosecutor said.

It read: "it’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it”. The note also said “I am running away because I am scared”.

Mr Emlyn Jones said: "It is certainly true that he ran away, as he put it in that note. In fact, the whole family ran – they fled to Pakistan, flying out on 9th August, and landing on 10th August. "The 999 call was not made until they were thousands of miles away."

The prosecutor added: "It is inconceivable that one of the adults alone, or two of them, could have carried out what amounts to a campaign of abuse without the complicity, participation, assistance and encouragement of the others."

None of the defendants ever reported Sara’s abuse to any outside agency, the court was told.

Mr Emlyn Jones said each defendant now seeks to "deflect the blame" onto one or both of the others and to "shift responsibility away from themselves".

Sharif will claim he was out working most of the time and that his wife was responsible for Sara's care and that he made a false confession to protect her, it was said.

Batoo will claim the reverse, claiming her husband was a "violent disciplinarian, who regularly assaulted Sara". Her case is that she knew something of what was happening, but that she was fearful of her husband, the court was told.

It is understood that Malik will claim he had nothing to do with Sara's death and he was unaware of the abuse, Mr Emlyn Jones said. They have all pleaded not guilty to her murder and to causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16 2022 and August 9 2023.

The trial continues.