LONDON (AFP): The trial of three family members accused of murdering a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl has shocked the UK as details of the horrific abuse the girl suffered emerged in court.

Sara Sharif was found dead in bed at her family’s home in Woking, southern England, in August 2023, with broken bones, bites and burn marks on her body.

The discovery sparked an international manhunt for relatives accused of murder, who fled to Pakistan the day before with Sara’s five siblings.

His father, 42-year-old taxi driver Urfan Sharif, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, returned to the UK the following month and have been on trial since mid-October. They deny the accusations.

The Old Bailey court in London heard Sara had 25 fractures, including one to the hyoid bone in her neck.

Pathologist and bone expert Anthony Freemont told the jury he concluded it was the result of “neck compression”, most often caused by “manual strangulation”.

The teenager was found with dozens of bruises, including bite marks, while his, his father’s and his uncle’s DNA was detected on both ends of a cricket bat and belt.

While Sara’s blood was found in a carrying bag that was thought to have been placed on her head, blood and hair were also detected on a piece of brown tape.

– ‘Forged black’ –

Jurors heard Friday that Batool was the only defendant who refused to provide dental impressions of his teeth.

The court had previously heard that in WhatsApp messages he sent to his sister over several years, Sharif stated that he shot Sara because she was “rude and unruly”.

“Covered in bruises, literally beaten black,” one message read.

Batool added, “There’s a genie inside you,” referring to genie-like supernatural beings in mythology.

Sharif told Sara’s school four months before her death that she would be homeschooled “effective immediately,” prosecutor William Emlyn Jones said Friday.

Around the same time the family moved to Woking, a short distance from the town of West Byfleet.

By then, teachers had noticed bruising on his body in June 2022 and March 2023.

The court heard Sara did not want to answer questions about the injuries and hid her head in her arms.

Giving evidence earlier in the trial, teacher Helen Simmons described him as a “happy child” and said he could be “spoiled” at times.

Simmons said he saw bruises on her face twice and referred the girl to the school’s watchdog services after she did not give a coherent explanation for her injuries.

This led Batool to confront her at school two weeks later and claim the marks were made with a pen, jurors heard.

– ‘I lost’ –

Meanwhile, neighbors regularly heard shouting, commotion and crying.

Rebecca Spencer, who lives downstairs from the family, said she heard Batool “screaming”.

“I would hear the stepmother yelling at Sara,” he testified.

Spencer also said he heard “constant rattling of the door” as he was “trying to open the door” and what sounded like someone “locked in a bedroom.”

Sitting behind plexiglass in court, the three defendants listened with their heads bowed Friday morning.

Sharif, a short, thin and hard-featured man, looked up to watch clips of the arrests shown to jurors at Gatwick Airport in September 2023.

In footage taken from the arresting officers’ body cameras, Batool raised his hand and said, “I think you’re looking for us.”

The day after he fled England a month ago, Sharif called the British police in Pakistan and announced that he had “legally punished my daughter and she is dead.”

Claiming that he was “naughty”, he added: “I beat him, I didn’t mean to kill him but I beat him a lot.”

Police found Sara’s body in a sheet-covered bunk bed, along with a note from her father in which he claimed he did not intend to kill her but wrote “I lost it.”

The trial will continue next week. -AFP