Sara Sharif’s father will be in “circles of hell for eternity” for what he did to his daughter but only her stepmother knows how she died, jurors have been told.
On Friday, defence lawyers were giving closing speeches in the Old Bailey trial of taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, his wife Beinash Batool, 30, and brother Faisal Malik, 29, for the murder of the 10-year-old last August.
Sharif had initially blamed Batool for Sara’s death at the family home in Woking, Surrey, but on the seventh day of his evidence dramatically accepted “full responsibility”.
He made a series of admissions but later appeared to backtrack and claim he did not intend to harm Sara when he beat her with a cricket bat and metal pole.
Sharif denied putting a hood over Sara’s head and biting and burning her with a hot iron and boiling water during a campaign of abuse.
His lawyer Naeem Mian KC suggested only Batool knew the truth of how Sara died, but had opted not to give evidence.
Mr Mian told jurors: “It’s so difficult to try and untangle all of this and see what people are saying because the only person who can say what happened on the Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday when Sara is in her arms is her.”
Sharif was undoubtedly a “scumbag” but had at least gone into the witness box and “opened himself up”, Mr Mian said.
On his client’s shock admissions, he said: “It came as a total surprise to me and I have no doubt it came as a total surprise to you. According to the press you were all open mouthed.”
Mr Mian went on: “What happened to Sara was awful and that must be the understatement of the year. It was savage, it was brutal.
“You may think quite rightly and deservedly so that that man will never forgive himself. He will be in the circles of hell for eternity.
“He’s undoubtedly guilty of something but the question for you members of the jury is of what and that’s something you’ve got to unpack yourselves.”
Sharif had admitted he was “a cruel father” and “a selfish man” and that he beat Sara with a cricket bat once or twice but that he did not mean to seriously harm her.
Mr Mian said the fractures Sharif caused were healing by the time of her death and were not a “significant contributory factor”.
There remained unknown details of what happened before Sara died last August 8 and Batool called Sharif home.
Mr Mian said: “We don’t know why it is Sara was in her (Batool’s) lap when Mr Sharif returned.
“We don’t know why there are blood spots in the kitchen downstairs because the only person who can say what actually happened on August 8 is Batool and she has not told you.”
Why Batool did not call an ambulance and instead made 30 calls to her family also remained a mystery, the court was told.
Social services, police and the family courts all knew about past accusations of abuse levelled at Sharif but they went “absolutely nowhere” and did not prevent him from gaining custody of Sara, Mr Mian added.
Caroline Carberry KC rejected Sharif’s description of Batool as an evil psycho, saying the only psychopath in the courtroom was him.
In her speech on behalf of Batool, Ms Carberry said: “The sole perpetrator of the violence that led to Sara’s death is Urfan Sharif.”
She pointed to his admissions under cross-examination that he hit her in the face and head repeatedly with a bat and pole two days before her death.
Ms Carberry said: “When he realised he had in fact admitted murder having answered a series of straightforward questions and long before he became overwrought, he then desperately and implausibly backtracked after consultation with his legal team.”
She said Sharif was a “comfortable liar” and manipulator, adding: “You cannot trust anything he said since his clear witness box confession or indeed anything said on his behalf because his legal team act on his instructions and he is still, despite his confessions, trying to get away with murder.”
Ms Carberry pointed out evidence of Sara’s teachers that she was a “spirited, bold and fierce” little girl.
She said: “No doubt that spirit, that boldness from his daughter was what Urfan Sharif tried to silence with his beating, control, cruel punishment and degrading treatment of her.
“Terrorising not just Sara but everyone else who lived under the roof with him.”
Michael Ivers KC, for the third defendant, told jurors: “What evidence links Faisal Malik to murder – nothing.”
The defendants, of Woking, have denied murder, causing or allowing the death of a child and the alternative offence of manslaughter.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
