Ten-year-old Sara Sharif died after an alleged “campaign of abuse” in the home she shared with her father, stepmother and uncle.
Here is a timeline of how events unfolded, according to the prosecution.
– April 2023
Father Urfan Sharif informs Sara’s school that she will be home-schooled with immediate effect.
– April 6 2023
Sara and her family move to a three-bedroom house in Hammond Road in the Horsell area of Woking.
– August 8 2023
8.38pm – A child sends a WhatsApp message to a school friend labelled “urgent”, saying that Sara had “just passed away”.
9.07pm – Beinash Batool, Sara’s stepmother, calls Southall Travel agency to ask about flights to Pakistan but after 50 minutes the call ends without flights being arranged.
10pm – Sharif contacts Nadeem Riaz, who works for a money transfer business, and says he needs a flight to Pakistan the next day.
– August 9 2023
9.25am – CCTV captures Sharif and his family arriving at Heathrow Airport to take a flight to Pakistan at 2pm.
– August 10 2023
2.47am – Sharif has arrived in Pakistan and phones police in the UK, saying: “I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died. She was naughty. I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
Police go to the family home in Woking and find Sara’s body in a bed with a note by the pillow in Sharif’s handwriting.
– August 15 2023
A post-mortem examination is undertaken which concludes Sara’s death was not a natural one. There were alleged signs of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks, bruises, iron burns to the buttocks, restraint marks and suspected human bite marks, jurors heard.
– September 6 2023
Sharif and Batool appear in a short video clip provided to and broadcast by Sky News in which Batool refers to Sara’s death as an “incident”.
– September 13 2023
Sharif, Batool and Sara’s uncle Faisal Malik take a flight into Gatwick and are met by police who arrest them on the plane.
– October 14 2024
The three defendants, of Woking, Surrey, go on trial at the Old Bailey, having denied murder and causing or allowing Sara’s death.
