Sara Sharif’s father had no answer when asked how his daughter and another child suffered similar iron burns and human bites despite this being the “common denominator”.
For more than a week on the witness stand, taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, had denied killing his 10-year-old daughter after a years-long campaign of abuse.
Sara was found dead at the family home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10, after Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool, 30, and brother Faisal Malik, 29, fled to Pakistan.
Sara Sharif was found dead at the family home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year (Surrey Police/PA)
She suffered dozens of injuries, including multiple broken bones, bites, burns and signs of being hooded and restrained, the Old Bailey has heard.
Sharif had initially blamed Batool for Sara’s death, but on the seventh day told jurors that he took “full responsibility”.
He admitted strangling her with his bare hands and assaulting her with a cricket bat, a metal pole and a mobile phone, even punching her in the stomach as she lay dying.
He denied having anything to do with human bite marks on her arm and iron burns on her buttocks.
On Thursday, Michael Ivers QC, for Malik, questioned Sharif about evidence that Sara was the second child to suffer such injuries.
He said: “What are the chances that two children you are associated with suffered iron burns and bite wounds?”
Sharif replied: “I wasn’t blamed for that. It wasn’t me. I didn’t bite.”
Mr Ivers states: “Of course it is no coincidence, you are the common denominator.
“Did you tell anyone to do that? Did you have an idea how she (Sara) should be punished? Is that the truth of it all?”
Sharif replied: “There are certain things I cannot explain. I have no words.”
Urfan Sharif was detained at Gatwick Airport after returning from Pakistan (Surrey Police/PA)
Mr Ivers replied: “Can you try to think of a few?”
The suspect said, “I didn’t do it, sir.”
The lawyer suggested it was also no coincidence that Sharif’s several former Polish partners claimed he would lock them up and take away their passports.
“What are the chances that you are so unlucky that all those Polish women say the same about you,” he said.
Referring to the jury, Mr Ivers said: “Are you a confident man, Mr Sharif? Do you think you can tell these people it’s all a coincidence and they’ll believe you?
“You know that all these ladies are separately making the same accusation against you and you think you can make that.”
Sharif claimed that he had bruises on his body during his relationship with Sara’s mother Olga.
Mr Ivers suggested it was ‘classic domestic violence’ to get one of the women to retract her claims, and here again he was the ‘common denominator’.
Sharif replied: “Yes, sir.”
Previously, the defendant admitted he had a “credibility problem” because he had not told the truth to the jury during his earlier testimony.
Mr Ivers said: ‘The oath you took on your holy book meant nothing. Your jury walked past you for a whole week, looked at you and you looked at them, right? And if you sometimes started to cry, was it real or not? If your eyes opened wide, was that an act?’
Sharif said: “It was real. I lost my daughter.”
Sara Sharif suffered dozens of injuries including multiple broken bones, bites, burns and signs of being hooded and restrained, the trial heard (Surrey Police/PA)
Mr Ivers said: “It wasn’t about that pain, it was about you trying to deceive everyone in this room.”
Sharif replied: “No, sir. The pain is real.”
Mr Ivers suggested Sharif was not grieving for his daughter but wanted to tell a “pack of lies” in court.
Sharif told jurors he could not imagine the pain Sara had endured before her death.
Mr Ivers said: “You must have seen it when you hit her with a bat? You have never had a broken bone and you know how many broken bones she has suffered.
“I don’t want to upset people but she must have been screaming and crying and heaven knows what and you did that and then for a whole week you tried to blame someone else for what you did.”
Faisal Malik denies murder and caused or permitted Sara’s death (Surrey Police/PA)
Asked how Sara reacted when she was hit by a bat, Sharif said: “She must have been in pain.”
Mr Ivers suggested he had not done it in front of Malik and that it must have come as a “body blow” to their family in Pakistan when they read about his confession before jurors on Wednesday.
Malik, 14 years Sharif’s junior, looked up to his older brother and neither was raised with strict discipline, the court was told.
Their father was a sergeant in the Army, but he was a “kind and quite sensitive man,” Ivers said.
Sharif, Batool and Malik, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, Surrey, deny murder and causing or permitting Sara’s death and the trial continues.