Sara Sharif’s father has denied burning, beating and biting his daughter, claiming his wife was the “evil and psycho” one in the household.
Urfan Sharif, 42, Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of her murder after a campaign of abuse.
Jurors have heard Sara suffered dozens of injuries, including burns from an iron and human bite marks, before she died at her home in Woking, Surrey, last August.
Giving evidence on Thursday, Sharif wept as he cast the blame at his wife sitting in the dock, saying: “I never knew I was living with evil and psycho.”
Jurors were told that Batool stayed at home with Sara while Sharif worked long hours as a taxi driver and cooked and cleaned for the family at weekends.
Sharif denied Batool’s repeated claims to her sister that he was “beating the crap” out of his daughter.
He admitted he slapped Sara “multiple times” but only because Batool told him she was “playing up”.
Referring to one alleged incident Batool relayed to her sister, defence barrister Naeem Mian KC said: “You’ve had a long day, you’ve been told by Batool Sara, in particular, has been playing up.
“Wouldn’t you just say ‘I’ll sort it out’, go to her bedroom, wake her up and kick the crap out of her?”
Sharif replied: “No sir. She always accused her of everything that did happen.
“I slapped her only because I was made to. My daughter Sara was doing everything to make her life hell.”
He went on: “Beinash all the time she accused Sara. She was blaming my daughter.
“I should not have believed her. I never knew I was living with evil and psycho.”
Mr Mian said: “According to her, you’re the psycho, you’re the one who took a cricket bat to Sara.”
Sharif denied it, saying he never beat her with a white pole or bit her arm either.
He told jurors: “The person who bit my daughter on the arm like an animal? I didn’t do it, Faisal didn’t do it … Who else was at home?”
Mr Main reminded jurors of evidence that only Batool had refused to give her dental impressions to compare with the marks on Sara’s body.
At the end of last July, Sharif said he found out from Batool that Sara was wearing a nappy because she “could not control her bladder”.
When he challenged his wife about it, she told him that it was “normal” for growing girls as their bodies changed, the court heard.
Sharif told jurors: “Sara wet herself a few times. Beinash told me we need to put her in a nappy, she’s growing up, she’s going through that time of the month.”
Mr Mian said: “Are you just making this up because you, the psycho, burnt Sara? You burnt her so badly that she wasn’t able to sit down. With an iron.
“Did you burn, did you brand Sara on her bottom?”
Sharif replied: “No sir.”
On the day of her death, Sara did the laundry but she never did ironing because she was “too young” and it was “dangerous”, he said.
Sharif wept in court as he described an incident days earlier when he returned home and found his daughter with her arms bound behind her back with packaging tape in the television room.
Batool was “shocked” to see him, Sharif said: “I screamed. I was angry, I was annoyed.
“She, Sara, was terrified. She was scared. She didn’t say much. I hugged her, I kissed her, then me and Beinash went into the kitchen.
“She apologised to me and she promised that she wouldn’t do it again. And even after those days, I was that stupid that I believed her.”
He said he cut his daughter free using a knife from the kitchen.
Mr Mian asked why he did not call the police, saying: “Your daughter, the girl you have fought for custody of, at home has her arms tied behind her back with packaging tape?”
The defendant said he had been “an idiot” and should had called the police.
Mr Mian said: “According to you, you just caught her red-handed. This is your daughter.”
Sharif said: “She (Batool) apologised. I’ve been wrong for a long long time.”
He denied seeing bruises on her body, only a “scratch on the nose” as Sara wore a hijab, long sleeves and leggings, even when she was at home.
Sharif said that none of the women in his family wore a hijab but Sara chose to because she wanted to look like Batool’s sisters.
Mr Mian observed that those were the sisters who, according to Sharif, would not allow her into their house and made her wait in the car outside.
Sharif said Batool told him Sara should put on a hijab at home “to let her get in the habit of wearing it”.
Mr Mian said: “In her doing that, her putting the hijab on 10-year-old Sara, was she trying to hide the injuries you caused to Sara?”
Sharif replied: “I didn’t cause injuries.”
He also told jurors that by the time she was aged 10, he stopped bathing Sara because Batool told him she was “growing up”.
Mr Mian asked: “Are you sure that you’re not just making that up because if you’re making that up, you can say I didn’t see any bruises?”
Sharif responded: “No sir.”
A day after Sara died, the defendants took a flight to Pakistan and were arrested on September 13 upon their return to the UK.
The defendants, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, have denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16 2022 and August 9 2023.
