A note from her father left under Sara Sharif's pillow, in which he admits that he killed her “by beating her” (photo |). UK news

Jurors were shown a handwritten note in which Sara Sharif's father admitted to killing his 10-year-old daughter “by beating her.”

Warning: This story contains details that readers may find disturbing

Minicab driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey alongside Sarah's stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, while they deny murder and causing or enabling the child's death.

During an eight-and-a-half-minute phone call to police in the early morning hours of August 10 last year, after fleeing to Pakistan with the rest of his family, Sharif sobbed and said: “I am a cruel father” and “I killed my daughter.”

“I punished her according to the law, and as a result she died,” he said in an interview in court, and told the operator that “she was naughty.”

“My daughter is dead. “I panicked and left the house… I beat her, it wasn't my intention to kill her, but I beat her too badly.”

Jurors were shown body-worn camera footage of the moment a police officer entered their “clean” Woking home. Surreybefore he found Sarah's body.

There was a fan on in the upstairs bedroom that pointed to a lower bunk bed with a sheet placed “perfectly” over a human figure, he added.

“I pulled back the cover and underneath was the body of a 10-year-old girl,” he said. “She was lying on the bed on her back, with her arms at her side and her legs together.”

The court heard there were bruises on her face and little finger, and there was a note written in Sharif's handwriting under one of the pillows near her head.

On the first page he wrote “I love you, Sara”, while on the second page it was written: “Whoever sees this note, it is me Urfan Sharif killed my daughter by beating. I'm running away because I'm afraid, but I promise that I will give myself up and be punished.

“I swear to God I didn't mean to kill her, but I lost it. My daughter is Muslim. Can you bury her (sic) like a Muslim. I'll be back before you finish the autopsy.”

The court heard Sara suffered dozens of injuries, including bruises, burns and broken bones, as a result of a “brutal” campaign of abuse in the weeks leading up to her death on August 8 last year.

She began wearing a hijab to hide from the outside world injuries to her face and head as she was beaten with objects, strangled, restrained, burned with an iron and bitten, the jury was told.

Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said jurors would be better able to understand how the wounds were inflicted when told about a possible weapon found by police during a search of the house.

A piece of black rope with strands of Sarah's hair glued to it, a rolling pin and a plastic-covered metal pole or baton were found in a small brick shed, while a cricket bat stained with blood consistent with Sarah's DNA was found hanging outside.

In containers on the side of the house, officers found a dirty diaper with Sarah's DNA on it and “strange-looking items” made from pieces of a plastic bag wrapped in packing tape, some stained with blood or tufts of hair.

Emlyn Jones described them as “homemade hoods” and added: “They were placed over Sarah's head as we suggested and then taped on.”

Batool's Amazon purchase history shows she bought 18 rolls of packing tape in July alone, the jury was told.

The prosecutor said a neighbor heard a “single high-pitched scream” two days before Sarah's death that lasted a few seconds and then suddenly stopped.

“Terrifying screams” was heard by a neighbor

“It sounded to her like the cry of someone in pain and, as she put it, 'That didn't sound good,'” Emlyn Jones told the jury.

A neighbor at the family's previous address said she heard banging and rattling and the sounds of a baby crying or screaming, followed by “death silence”, the court heard.

Another testified that she heard children screaming and a woman shouting, “Shut the fuck up” and “go to your room, you fucking bastard,” the prosecutor said.

She also heard “shockingly loud” slapping sounds followed by “gut-wrenching screams,” the court heard, and said Sarah's duties included taking out the bins and hanging up the laundry every week.

The court heard Batool told her sisters about the abuse her stepdaughter had suffered for more than two years before her death.

In May 2021, she wrote in a message: “Urfan beat up Sara. She is covered in bruises, literally beaten black and white. I feel so sorry for Sara, the poor girl can't walk. I really want to report him.”

In another, she said: “Sarah has experienced something I won't be able to forgive myself.”

All three defendants are believed to have played a role in the violence and ill-treatment that led to Sarah's death before flying to Pakistan the following day.

The jury was told Sharif would claim he gave “false testimony” to protect his wife, who would say he used the “brutal discipline” she feared.

Malik, who worked part-time at McDonald's, is expected to say he was unaware of the harassment.

The process continues.