A dad accused of murdering his “adopted” daughter at home told police “I was at Tescos – I don't know what happened", a trial has heard.

But Jan Gholami has been accused of creating a false alibi to establish that he was not in the family home at the time two-year-old Zahra sustained her fatal injuries.

Zahra Ghulami was brought to Kent from Afghanistan when she was just two years and 10 months after her birth mother died.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the child was admitted with serious injuries to the A&E department at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford on May 27, 2020, during the first Covid lockdown.

Her adoptive parents Jan Gholami, 32, and Roqia Ghulami, 31, of Oak Road, Gravesend have both denied her murder.

Today, on the second day of the couple's murder trial, prosecutor Sally Howes KC said: "It is the prosecution's case that he had inflicted those fatal injuries before he left for his shopping trip."

Zahra had been taken to hospital by her "adoptive" father Jan Gholami.

"It was noted immediately by hospital staff she was floppy and unresponsive and her breathing was shallow. Her heart rate was slow and her blood pressure high,” Ms Howes told the court.

"She had a large swelling to the back of her head.

"He told doctors that Zahra had injured herself in an unwitnessed fall down the stairs at home while he was away at a local Tescos.”

The prosecutor claimed that CT scans taken at the time and a subsequent post-mortem revealed a number of suspicious earlier injuries to the shoulder and head.

"So not just the catastrophic injury which had led to her death but she had a number of earlier injuries,” the barrister claimed.

Ms Howes said that doctors at London's Kings College Hospital operated on the child but the brain injury was "unsurvivable" and she died on May 29.

She said one medical expert has said in his statement: "In my opinion, this is the sort of injury which results from direct impact such as being thrown to the floor forcibly dashed up against a wall or some other upright structure."

She added: "The Crown suggested that the preponderance, the weight of the evidence, points very strongly towards Jan Gholami as being the person responsible for inflicting this series of escalating violence upon Zahra."

The jury was told the family had lived in Afghanistan and Gholami came to the UK in January 2016 after telling the immigration officials they were fleeing the Taliban.

Ms Howes added that he also claimed he was leaving because of his wife's family disapproved of their marriage and that it was illegal. The penalty for this is stoning.

In 2018, Gholami was given a UK passport and told officials his wife, who was in Afghanistan, was in the process of adopting a child, Zahra.

"The adoption was an informal arrangement which was approved by the local elders. Zahra's mother had died as a result of giving birth, according to Ghulami."

The Red Cross helped the mother-of-two come to the UK with Zahra in May 2019 and she lived in Wallis Park, Gravesend before moving to Oak Road.

On May 27, the family had breakfast and video footage on Gholami's phone showed the children eating fruit.

Later, he took one of the children with him when he went shopping at a local Tesco store and just before leaving he took a photograph of the child.

CCTV cameras caught father and son entering the store and then they arrived at home to be told Zahra had vomited and fallen down the stairs, a claim described as "implausible but not impossible" by the prosecution.

"Ghulami's account was that Zahra had left the bedroom when she heard a drop noise and then dropness (sic)".

"She then crawled and saw Zahra had fallen downstairs but she managed to bring her back upstairs."

In a statement to police, Roqia Ghulami said: "When I crawled to the door I saw that she had fallen down the stairs, maybe she has hit her head by the heater or by the door."

She told police that after crawling down the stairs she hugged Zahra who then "began vomiting."

The prosecutor claimed that when Gholami was later arrested by police, he produced a receipt from Tesco.

On May 27, Gholami was arrested and replied: "Why are they taking me to a police station? What have I done? I have enough worries. My child is in a coma.

"I don't know anything about what happened to the child because I was not at home. I was at Tescos. I don't know what happened."

After producing the Tesco receipt he added: "I am a Muslim. You can't blame me for these things..there are cameras..whatever happened I was not at home."

On May 28, Gholami in a prepared statement told police: "I have never caused any physical harm to Zahra. Yesterday I went shopping in Tesco.

"When I returned home, my wife was sitting on the bed holding a new-born child.

"Zahra was on the floor on a sleeping bag. She had been vomiting and she had small cuts to the side of her mouth and the bridge of her nose.

"Zahra was not conscious. My wife told me that Zahra had fallen down the stairs and hit her head. I was not aware of any previous injury to her head."

He claimed that Zahra's real father was his friend and he was in the UK when the adoption took place.

Jan added: "Her mother had died and it was the doctor's opinion that the child would not survive."

Social workers had attempted to visit the family on two occasions.

On May, 2020, Ms Howes told the court Zahra was sleeping at the time of the first visit.

The prosecutor said: "Gholami became frustrated and said Zahra was sleeping."

And when the officials returned the same day, Jan told them the child was in a bath and because it was during the lockdown, he showed the child through frosted glass from an upstairs window.

Gholami described Zahra as "a happy child, playful was not naughty. She was a curious child."

The couple have also denied causing or allowing the death of a child and child cruelty.

The trial continues.