Sara Sharif: Neighbour heard 'high-pitched scream' two days before 10-year-old's death, court told

A blood-stained cricket bat, a rolling pin and home-made hoods may have been used to abuse Sara Sharif in the weeks before her alleged murder, a court has heard.

Warning: This story contains details readers may find distressing

The 10-year-old began to wear a hijab to hide her injuries to her face and head from the outside world as she was beaten with objects, strangled, tied up, burnt with an iron and bitten, the Old Bailey has heard.

A neighbour heard a "single high-pitched scream" of someone in pain two days before her death on 8 August 2023, a jury was told.

Her body was found in an upstairs bedroom on a bottom bunk bed of her home in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August last year after her father Urfan Sharif, 42, called police and confessed to killing her after fleeing to Pakistan with the rest of the family.

The minicab driver is on trial along with Sara's stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, where they deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The court has heard Sara suffered dozens of injuries, including bruising, burns and broken bones in a "brutal" campaign of abuse in the weeks leading up to her death.

Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said jurors may get a better sense of how the wounds were inflicted as he outlined the potential weapons found by police in a search of the home.

A length of black rope with hairs pulled from Sara's head stuck on it, a rolling pin and a plastic-coated metal pole or baton, were found in a small brick outhouse at the back of the house, while a cricket bat stained with blood matching Sara's DNA was leaning outside.

In bins to the side of the house, officers found a filthy nappy with a match to Sara's DNA, and "strange looking objects" made of bits of plastic bag wrapped up with parcel tape, some stained with blood or clumps of hairs.

Mr Emlyn Jones described them as "home-made hoods", adding: "They had been placed over Sara's head, we suggest and then taped in place."

Batool's Amazon shopping history showed she had bought 18 rolls of parcel tape in July alone, the jury was told.

The prosecutor said one neighbour heard a "single high-pitched scream" two days before Sara's death, which lasted a couple of seconds and stopped suddenly.

'Gut-wrenching screams' heard by neighbour

"It sounded to her like the scream of someone in pain and as she put it, 'It didn't sound good'," he told the jury.

A neighbour at the family's previous address said she had heard banging and rattling along with the sounds of a child crying or screaming, followed by a "deathly quiet" silence, the court heard.

Another said she would hear children screaming and a woman shouting: "Shut the f*** up" and "go to your room you f***ing bastard," the prosecutor said.

She would also hear "shockingly loud" sounds of smacking followed by "gut-wrenching screams", the court heard, and said Sara's responsibilities included taking out the bins every week and hanging out the washing.

Batool told her sisters about the violence her stepdaughter suffered for more than two years before her death, the court heard.

In May 2021, she said in a message: "Urfan beat the crap out of Sara. She's covered in bruises, literally beaten black. I feel really sorry for Sara, poor girl can't walk. I really want to report him."

In another she said: "Something happens to Sara I will not be able to forgive myself."

Prosecutors say that in January last year, Sara began to wear a hijab - the only member of her family to do so - while teachers at her primary school spotted bruises on her face before she was withdrawn to be home-schooled in April.

All three defendants are said to have played their part in the violence and mistreatment that resulted in Sara's death before flying to Pakistan the following day.

Sharif dialled 999 in the early hours of 10 August last year, when he and the rest of his family were already thousands of miles away, telling police in a tearful eight-and-a-half minute call: "I've killed my daughter."

He also said: "I legally punished her, and she died," adding "she was naughty", and: "I beat her up, it wasn't my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much."

The court heard the house's Ring doorbell had been removed, while police found a note in his handwriting by her body, next to her pillow, which said "Love you Sara" on the first page.

"It's me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I am running away because I am scared but I promise that I will hand over myself and take punishment," it said.

The jury was told Sharif will claim he made a "false confession" to protect his wife, who will say he was a "violent disciplinarian" who she was afraid of.

Malik, who worked part-time at McDonald's, is expected to say he was not aware of the abuse.

The trial continues.

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