CCTV footage has emerged showing Sara Sharif’s family at Heathrow Airport just hours before the 10-year-old girl was found dead at her home in Woking, Surrey.
The footage, presented in court, captured Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, his wife Beinash Batool, 30, and his brother Faisal Malik, 29, passing through security at Heathrow Airport.
They were seen arriving in a BMW X5 at Heathrow’s short-stay car park on August 9, 2023.
The CCTV showed the family moving through passport control before boarding a flight to Pakistan at 1:22pm, which departed at 2pm.
Their departure came before police, responding to a call, discovered Sara’s body in her bunk bed with multiple injuries.
In court, prosecutors said that Sara’s body was found with 71 external injuries.
The prosecutor, Bill Emlyn Jones KC, described the injuries as “brutal” and indicative of a violent campaign lasting several weeks.
Prosecutors also said that Sara’s father allegedly made a confession in a call to emergency services on August 10.
“I’ve killed my daughter,” he reportedly told the operator, later adding: “I legally punished her, and she died.”
He reportedly continued: “She was naughty. I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
The court also heard that next to Sara’s body was a note in Urfan Sharif’s handwriting.
Mr Emlyn Jones KC said it read: “Whoever see this note it’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I am running away because I am scared but I promise I will hand over myself and take punishment. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her but I lost it.”
Sara was found to have suffered a number of injuries including ten spinal fractures, broken bones in her collar, shoulders, arms, hands, ribs and neck.
The family members – Sharif, Batool and Malik – deny charges of murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
They were apprehended at Gatwick Airport on September 13 last year, having flown back from Dubai via Pakistan.
The trial is still ongoing.
