Ganesh Kendale
Warning: This article features distressing details
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif suffered injuries which were comparable to a person involved in a car crash, a court has heard.
The girl’s body, which was found in her family’s home in Surrey last year, had signs of healing spinal fractures which had then been rebroken, the Old Bailey was told.
Her father Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, have denied murder.
Jurors previously heard the girl had been hooded, burned, bitten and beaten during more than two years of abuse.
Giving evidence, paediatric radiologist Prof Owen Arthurs told the court that spinal fractures were “very rare” and usually caused by high impact or high speed trauma, such as road traffic incidents.
He also told jurors that Sara’s neck injuries were “extremely rare”.
“The most likely cause is manual strangulation with a degree of force, which we would mostly recognise in hanging,” he told the court.
The court previously heard that Sara had suffered puncture wounds, burns, bruising and abrasions, and a post-mortem examination found Sara had “probable human bite marks”, an iron burn and scalding from hot water.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC previously said a bloodstained cricket bat, a rolling pin with Sara’s DNA on it, a metal pole, a belt and rope were found near the family’s outhouse.
The court also previously heard Mr Sharif, Ms Batool and Mr Malik travelled to Islamabad, Pakistan, with Sara’s five brothers and sisters on 9 August 2023, the day before her body was found.
Prosecutors said Mr Sharif called police from Pakistan and admitted he killed Sara about an hour after his family’s flight had landed in Islamabad.
Jurors were told Mr Sharif’s case was that Ms Batool was responsible for Sara’s death, and he made a false confession on the phone call and also in a note to protect his wife.
The three defendants, who lived with Sara in Woking before her death, are also charged with causing or allowing the death of a child, which they deny.
