LONDON, November 3 — The trial of three family members accused of murdering a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl has shocked Britain, as details of the horrific abuse she suffered were revealed in court.

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

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

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

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

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

The girl had dozens of bruises, including bite marks, while her DNA, along with that of her father and uncle, was detected on a cricket bat and on both ends of a belt.

Sara’s blood was found in a bag believed to have been placed on her head, while blood and hair were detected on a piece of brown tape.

“Beaten black”

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

The court had previously seen WhatsApp messages she had sent to her sister over several years in which she reported that Sharif had hit Sara because she was “rude and rebellious”.

“She is covered in bruises, literally beaten black,” one message said.

“She has a jinn inside her,” Batool added, referring to the supernatural, genie-like beings of mythology.

Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones revealed on Friday that four months before her death, Sharif had told Sara’s school that she would be home-schooled “effective immediately”.

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

The teachers then noticed bruises on his body, in June 2022 and March 2023.

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

Testifying earlier in the trial, teacher Helen Simmons described her as a “happy kid” who was sometimes “sassy.”

Simmons said she twice saw bruises on her face and when the girl did not give a consistent account of her injuries, the school called in surveillance services.

That prompted Batool to confront her at school two weeks later and claim the marks had been made with a pen, jurors heard.

‘I lost it’

During this time, neighbors regularly heard screams, commotion and crying.

Rebecca Spencer, who lived below the family, said she would hear Batool “screaming.”

“I could hear the mother-in-law yelling at Sara,” she testified.

Spencer also said he heard noises that sounded like someone “locked in a room,” with “the constant clicking of the door” as they “tried to open it.”

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

Sharif – a short, thin man with harsh features – looked up to watch clips of their arrests at Gatwick Airport in September 2023 shown to jurors.

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

The day after fleeing the UK a month earlier, Sharif called British police from Pakistan to explain that he had “legally punished my daughter and she was dead”.

“I beat her, I didn’t want to kill her but I beat her too much,” he added, saying she had been “bad.”

Police found Sara’s body on a bunk bed covered with a sheet, next to a note in which her father said he had not intended to kill her but wrote: “I I lost.”

The trial continues next week. -AFP