'I LEGALLY PUNISHED HER AND SHE DIED'

SARA Sharif's fugitive dad rang police from Pakistan and said she died at home after he "legally punished" her, a murder trial heard.

- Paul Jeeves

Urfan Sharif made the eight-minute call soon after he flew with his family to Islamabad, prompting Surrey officers to find the 10-year-old's body.

The taxi driver told police "I beat her up, it wasn't my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much," jurors heard yesterday.

Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool and his brother Faisal Malik are accused of murdering Sara before abandoning her battered body at their semi-detached home in Woking. The Old Bailey jury heard that she had suffered 71 separate injuries including 25 broken bones, plus bite marks, burns and bruises.

The trial was told Sara had been burned on her buttocks with an iron and tied to a heating pipe, and suffered 10 different fractures in the weeks leading up to her death.

Other injuries were said to be at least six weeks old.

There were breaks to her right collar bone, both shoulder blades, both arms, both hands, three fingers, bones near both wrists and to two ribs.

William Emlyn Jones KC, prosecuting, said: "Sara had not just been beaten up. Her treatment, certainly in the last few weeks of her life, had been appalling. It had been brutal.

"And throughout, these three defendants were the adults living in the house where Sara had lived, living in the house where Sara had suffered, and living in the house where she had died." An examination revealed that she had suffered a traumatic brain injury and is likely to have died on the evening of August 8 last year.

A child sent an "urgent" WhatsApp message to a friend at 8.38pm to say Sara had "just passed away", the court heard.

Half an hour later Batool, 30, and Sharif, 42, began booking flights. The three defendants were seen on CCTV at Heathrow the following morning.

At 2.47am the next day, Sharif rang 999 from Pakistan and said: "I've killed my daughter.