LONDON — The father of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl found dead at her home in the United Kingdom, denied responsibility for his daughter’s death as he testified at her Nov. 5 murder trial.

Sara was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London, after what prosecutors say was a campaign of “serious and repeated violence”.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors at the start of the trial that Sara suffered a litany of injuries, including burns and bites.

Her father Urfan Sharif, 42, his wife and Sara Sharif’s mother-in-law, Beinash Batool, 30, and the girl’s uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey court in London, accused of his murder.

The trio is accused of causing or permitting the death of a child. All three deny the charges against them and blame each other for his death, prosecutors said.

Emlyn Jones told jurors in October that Urfan Sharif told police: “I didn’t mean to kill her, but I beat her too much.”

Sharif took the witness stand on November 5 and was asked by his lawyer, Naeem Mian, whether he was responsible for Sara’s death. He said, “No.”

He became emotional when Mian asked him to describe what Sara looked like, saying she was “beautiful, an angel” and that her favorite color was pink.

Sharif agreed to slap Sara “a few times” to discipline her, but denied beating her on a regular or sustained basis.

Mian had told the jury that Sharif had been wrongly described as a “bad guy”, rather than Batool, for slapping Sara.

Batool’s case, prosecutors say, is that Urfan Sharif was a “violent disciplinarian” and she was afraid of him.

The trial is expected to last until December.

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