Sara Sharif trial latest: Father beat child with cricket bat in ‘normalised’ violence

On Thursday, Michael Ivers KC, for Malik, questioned Sharif about evidence that Sara was the second child connected with him to suffer bite marks and iron burns.

He said: “What are the chances that two children you are connected with ended up with burns from a domestic iron and bite marks?”

Sharif replied: “I was not blamed for that. It wasn’t me. I did not bite.”

Mr Ivers asserted: “Of course it’s not a coincidence, you are the common denominator.

“Did you tell someone to do so? Did you have an idea how she (Sara) should be punished? Is that the truth of all of this?”

Sharif replied: “There are certain things I can’t explain. I’ve got no words.”

The court heard Sara suffered a number of spine fractures from the beatings, similar to those sustained when a child falls 20ft from a roof.

Mr Emlyn Jones pressed: “You did that to Sara by hitting her with the force as if she had fallen from a second storey roof again and again and again.

“Last time to do the decent thing: When you beat Sara so hard with a cricket bat that you broke her spine did you intend to cause her at least a serious injury.”

Sharif replied: “No.”

Mr Emlyn Jones asserted: “You are a coward because you will not admit what you have done.”

“You are a coward, aren’t you, because it’s a coward who bullies and beats a child to make himself feel in control and it’s a coward who sits there and tries to blame other people for it.

In another tense moment of cross-examination, Sharif suggested it “kids” who had inflicted a large burn across Sara’s buttocks, which had been caused by a domestic iron.

“To do that to Sara to press and hold an iron across both of her buttocks, would it take two people to do that?,” prosecutor Wiliam Emlyn-Jones KC said.

“Would someone have to hold her down, would someone have to restrain her? There’s no sign of her wriggling around while being branded by an iron. So who was it?”.

“It must have been kids,” Sharif responded.

“How low will you stoop? An injury that will have caused her dreadful lasting pain that was still unhealed, open and gaping when she died. An injury said to have been at least two weeks old, at least two to six weeks or more, made worse by the fact she was being made to wear a dirty nappy contaminated with urine and faeces,” Mr Emlyn-Jones said.

On Thursday, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC insisted all the defendants must have known what was going on in the house.

He said Batool knew Sharif would deliver a beating on the many occasions she called him home because Sara had been “sick” or “naughty” but she did it anyway.

“She is setting her up for a beating. She’s making the call that makes the beating happen, she is calling it on and she is responsible for that, isn’t she?” he said.

Here are the key points from Urfan Sharif’s questioning in the dock on Thursday:

• Sharif admitted he had lied during earlier evidence, saying that “everything” that he said was wrong. He said: “I did lie. You can’t imagine my pain, I’m a bad dad, I’m a very bad dad but I’m still a father.”
• Sharif admitted trying to blame Beinash Batool, his wife and Sara’s stepmother, for Sara’s death. He accused her of tying up and beating his daughter. He was asked whether he “lied and then tried to implicate someone else,” to which he confirmed: “Yes sir.”
• Repeated accusations of domestic abuse were no more than a coincidence, Sharif insisted. He has been accused of abusive and controlling behaviour in three previous relationships.
• Sharif maintained that he had only used a cricket bat to hit Sara once, and that he had not hit her in the head. When asked to explain how Sara died, he said: “I can’t explain.”
• Sharif reiterated that he “takes responsibility” for Sara’s death. “I’ve been selfish blaming other people for something they didn’t do,” he said.
• Sharif told the court he had been “nasty” and “mean” with his daughter.

Sara Sharif suffered 25 unexplained fractures in multiple locations across her body, as well as an “extremely rare” neck injury that a radiologist had never seen before in a child, a court has heard.

Professor Owen Arthurs, who conducted an examination of the 10-year-old’s body, concluded that these had been most likely caused by “multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks”.