Sara Sharif suffered at least 71 injuries before her death, court hears

Sara Sharif suffered at least 71 injuries shortly before she was killed, a court has heard.

- Emine Sinmaz

The 10-year-old schoolgirl's "constellation" of injuries included grazes, burns, puncture wounds and bruises, some of which were the result of "repetitive blunt trauma" and "blunt impact or solid pressure, or both".

Sara's father, Urfan Sharif, 42, her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and her paternal uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of carrying out a violent "campaign of abuse" before she was found dead in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August last year.

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". The taxi driver also left a handwritten "confession" near her fully clothed body, saying: "I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it." Giving evidence yesterday, Dr Nathaniel Cary, a consultant forensic pathologist, gave Sara's cause of death as "complications arising from multiple injuries and neglect" and described it as "unnatural".