Sara Sharif’s extensive injuries likened to a ‘car crash victim’ - as tragic details of youngster's abuse emerge

18 October 2024, 15:44 | Updated: 18 October 2024, 17:00

Some readers may find the following details distressing

Ten-year-old Sara Sharif suffered injuries comparable to that of a car crash victim before her death, a court heard on Friday.

Sharif was found dead at her home in Woking, Surrey, in August last year and had more than 70 injuries in the weeks and months leading up to her death, jurors were told.

Her dad, Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmum Beinash Batool, 29, and Urfan's brother, Faisal Malik, 28 are all standing trial charged with her murder.

Earlier this week, jurors were told Sharif had a bone in her neck broken, showed signs of starvation and had been forced to wear a makeshift hood in the weeks before her death.

Read more: Sara Sharif, 10, was strangled before death and showed signs of starvation, court hears

Speaking on Friday, paediatric radiologist Prof Owen Arthurs told jurors that the spinal fractures suffered by the 10-year-old were “very rare” and usually reflective of high-impact trauma like car crashes.

He told the court: "My opinion of most of the fractures in this case... were that they were very unusual and they cannot be explained by an accidental mechanism nor can they be explained as any single high impact trauma event."

“The most likely cause is manual strangulation with a degree of force, which we would mostly recognise in hanging,” he told the court.

On Thursday, the court was shown X-rays of some of her injuries, including fractures in the fingers of her left hand and one in the u-shaped hyoid bone in her neck.

Bone specialist Professor Anthony Freemont told the court he found a break in her neck had been caused "within the setting of neck compression" of which "the most common cause of these types of fractures is manual strangulation".

He said that, according to his analysis, this injury was between six to 12 weeks old at the time of Sara's death.

Bodyworn camera footage of first officers arriving at Sara Sharif house

Two fractures in Sara’s fingers had occurred between 12 and 18 days before her death, the doctor said.

Professor Freemont said: "If you find fractures of different ages and different bones, there is a high likelihood they are non-accidental injuries."

The pathologist added that bone marrow samples from Sara’s body showed changes which could have been caused by starvation or "the rapid removal of all food".

Chilling bodyworn camera footage shows the first police officers entering the home of Sara Sharif.

The footage shows police arriving at the house in Woking in Surrey around five minutes after being called by Urfan Sharif, Sara's father.

The officers walk around the ground floor of the house, which is in darkness, asking if anyone is at home.

Finally, the officer whose bodyworn footage is being played walks up the stairs towards Sara's bedroom.

The rest of the family had flown to Pakistan after Sara's death, and Sharif had called police to tell her that she had died.

A note left by Sara's bed, ostensibly from Sharif, claims he killed her.

Jurors at the trial were shown the note found next to Sara's body at the family home in Woking last year.

The note read: "It's me, Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I swear to God it was not my intention to kill her but I lost it."

It added: "I'm running away because I'm scared."The note also said: "My daughter is Muslim. Can you bury her like Muslim may be. I will be back before you finish the post mortem."

The day after her death, Sara’s whole family fled on a flight out of the UK to Pakistan.

Her father was thousands of miles away when he made the call to Surrey Police to confess her death.