Father of Sara Sharif tells court 'evil' wife tied her up

The father of Sara Sharif has told a court he caught his "evil" wife red-handed after she tied his daughter's hands behind her back with tape just weeks before Sara was killed.

- Emine Sinmaz

Urfan Sharif said he had "shouted and screamed" when he found Sara, 10, bound by the living room radiator. He said his wife, Beinash Batool, told him: "She's been naughty so I've tied her hands so she doesn't hurt herself or someone else." Sharif denied beating and burning Sara and suggested Batool had bitten her "like an animal".

Sharif, 42, Batool, 30, and Sara's paternal uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey, accused of a "campaign of abuse" before Sara was found dead in a bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August 2023.

The defendants allegedly killed Sara on 8 August before fleeing to Pakistan, from where Sharif called police to say he had "beat her up too much". He had left a handwritten "confession" near her clothed body saying: "I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it."

A postmortem found Sara had fractures and 71 external injuries, including iron burns and bite marks.