Sara Sharif’s father told the court that his “evil and psychopathic” wife forced him to slap the 10-year-old girl and claimed she tied up his daughter with duct tape.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool and his brother Faisal Malik are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of Sara’s murder in August last year.

sarah He was found dead in bed at the family home in Woking, Surreyafter Sharif called police from Pakistan and said he had beaten her “too much.”

An autopsy found dozens of injuries, including burns and human bite marks.

Warning: This article contains details that readers may find distressing.

Speaking in court on Thursday, Sharif claimed he once came home to find Sara with her arms tied behind her back with duct tape in the TV room.

He said Batool seemed “shocked” to see him and told the court: “I screamed. I was angry, I was upset.

“She, Sara, was terrified. She was scared. She didn’t say much. I hugged her, kissed her and then Beinash and I went to the kitchen.

“She apologized to me and promised me she wouldn’t do it again.”

Sharif later told the court that he had freed his daughter with a knife from the kitchen and said he was “an idiot” for not calling the police.

The taxi driver then denied Batool’s repeated claims to his sister that he was “hitting Sara.”

However, he admitted to slapping his daughter “several times” when his wife told him he was “playing.”

Sharif claimed that they “forced me” to slap Sara because Batool “was blaming my daughter” and added: “I shouldn’t have believed him. I never knew he was living with evil and psychopath.”

Read more from the essay:
Father claims he “jumped out the window” to escape abuse
Sara’s stepmother cries as video shows girl dancing ‘days before murder’
Video shows the moment when Sara’s family is detained on a plane

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Sharif later denied hitting Sara with a white stick, biting her or putting a homemade hood over her head.

About Sara’s bites, he said: “I didn’t do it, Faisal didn’t do it…Who else was at home?”

Defense lawyer Naeem Mian KC pointed out to jurors that only Batool had refused to give him dental impressions to compare with the marks on Sara’s body.

Sharif also said he discovered his daughter was wearing a diaper last July thanks to Batool, who said the girl “couldn’t control her bladder” and that it was “normal.”

He denied branding Sara on the butt with an iron and told the court he saw no bruises on her body because she was wearing a hijab, long sleeves and tights at home. He also stated that he never saw her in pain or unable to move.

On the day of Sara’s death, Sharif said he received a call from Batool telling him to “come home,” to which he replied that he was “driving, not flying” and would return in 15 to 20 minutes.

He said he was not “burning with anger to get home” and said he had stopped to buy cigarettes or a vape pen at a co-op along the way.

Sharif, 42, Batool, 30, and Malik, 29, deny murdering and causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16, 2022 and August 9, 2023.

The trial continues.