Tragic Sara Sharif had fractures to 25 body parts that could not have been accidental, the murder trial heard

TRAGIC Sara Sharif had fractures to 25 parts of her body that could not have been accidental, her murder trial was told yesterday.

They were likely caused by weeks of blunt force trauma, an expert said.

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A broken hyoid bone in the ten-year-old’s neck was probably due to manual strangulation, it said.

Radiologist Prof Owen Arthurs said the fractures could not be declared an accident.

He said: “Many fractures can occur accidentally and many fractures can occur from a single event.”

“But in my opinion they were very unusual and cannot be explained by either random mechanisms or a single, high-impact traumatic event.

“In my opinion, the most likely explanation for the constellation of injuries is multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks.”

And he said some of their fractures are extremely rare.

He told the jury: “Scapula fractures are very rare in children.

“There are big muscles and it also moves. It’s pretty difficult to break your shoulder blade from a sports injury or something similar.

“These are almost certainly caused by direct blunt force trauma to the body.

“I can’t think of any random way that would break both shoulder blades at the same time.

“I have never seen a hyoid fracture in a child, even those with a history of ligature strangulation.

“The presence of a hyoid fracture suggests severe neck compression. The most likely cause of this is manual strangulation.”

X-rays of the various fractures were shown in court and the jury heard estimates of the timing of each injury – from less than 10 days to 12 weeks before Sara’s death.

An autopsy found ten spinal fractures and others in Sara’s collarbone, shoulder blades, both arms, both hands, three fingers, both wrists and two ribs.

Father Urfan, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, all from Woking, Surrey, deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The trial at the Old Bailey continues.

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