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.
Sara Sharif and her family moved to a house in Hammond Road in the Horsell area of Woking in April 2023 (Surrey Police/PA)
– 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.
Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, left, and stepmother Beinash Batool are accused of the 10-year-old’s murder (Surrey Police/PA)
– 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.
Floral tributes were left outside a property on Hammond Road, Woking, where Sara’s body was found (Jonathan Brady/PA)
– 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.