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Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother have been jailed for life for repeatedly inflicting pain and trauma during a “campaign of abuse” which resulted in the 10-year-old’s death.
With his voice shaking, the judge described her treatment as “nothing short of gruesome” as he outlined the horrifying injuries she endured while she was tortured by her family members.
The pair learned their fate after Sara’s mother, Olga Domin, who lives in Poland, called them “sadists” and “executioners”.
Surrey Police found Sara dead in a bunkbed at her home in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August last year, after her father Urfan Sharif rang police from Pakistan to confess he had beaten her “too much” for being “naughty”.
Appearing on Tuesday at the Old Bailey, taxi driver Sharif, 43, was jailed for a minimum of 40 years while Beinash Batool, 30, was handed a minimum 33-year sentence after they were both convicted last week.
There were cheers and applause from the public gallery as the sentences were delivered, with one person heard to say “evil”.
Facing the bowed-down defendants, Mr Justice Cavanagh said: “Sara’s death was the culmination of years of neglect, frequent assaults, and what can only be described as the torture of this small child, mainly, but not entirely, at the hands of you, her father, Urfan Sharif.”
Describing it as “almost inconceivable”, he said the abuse happened in plain sight in front of the family, including her uncle Faisal Malik, who was jailed for 16 years for causing or allowing her death.
“The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure,” the judge said.
Gruesome details of Sara’s extensive injuries shocked the nation after they emerged in court, which revealed the youngster had suffered more than 25 broken bones, scalding marks to her feet, human bite marks and iron burns from a domestic iron.
During her final months, she had been beaten with a cricket bat and a metal pole, as well as hit by a mobile phone and throttled until a bone in her neck had broken.
Makeshift hoods found at the property revealed she had her head covered and was tied with packaging tape for prolonged periods, which would have left her in excruciating pain. During this time, she was unable to access the toilet and was made to wear nappies, while Batool and Sharif allowed her to “stew in her own urine and faeces”.
“It is hard to imagine how terrifying it must have been for Sara, especially as the treatment was at the hands of her own parents,” Mr Justice Cavanagh said.
Joining the hearing remotely, Ms Domin watched as a statement was read out on her behalf by the prosecutor.
It said: “Sara was always smiling, she had her own unique character. The only thing I had left to give to my daughter was to give her a beautiful Catholic funeral which she deserves.
She added: “You are sadists although even this word is not enough for you. I would say you are executioners.”
In an emotional moment during the sentencing, the judge recalled that despite the regular abuse being meted out towards her, Sara had remained “cheerful” and could be seen smiling in a home video before she died.
Among the more heartbreaking pieces of evidence were Sara’s handwritten notes to her father, in which she apologised for misbehaving and wrote in his birthday card “I love you Dad”.
“The reality was that abuse which for anyone else would be exceptional had become normalised for this little girl. She had known nothing else for much of her life. You, Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool, had persuaded her that she deserved the treatment that you meted out to her,” Mr Justice Cavanagh said.
On 8 August, Sara’s condition deteriorated rapidly after she suffered a head injury, with Sharif beating her during her final moments as he claimed she was feigning illness.
Within hours of her death, they had organised flights to Pakistan from Heathrow airport and were the subject of an international manhunt until they voluntarily returned in September 2023.
Upon arriving in Islamabad during the early hours of 10 August, Sharif called Surrey Police to tearfully confess to killing his daughter, with a handwritten note by him also left next to her body.
The abuse inflicted upon Sara is believed to have started as early as 2019 when she was just six years old.
In WhatsApp messages, Batool had repeatedly texted her sister to say that Sharif would “beat the crap” out of his daughter to the point where she was unable to walk – and had been bruised black and blue.
Despite this, Batool failed to prevent the abuse, contact social services or seek medical treatment for her stepdaughter – and would call Sharif home from work to dish out punishments.
By January 2023, Sara, who had been described as “happy and sassy”, began wearing a hijab to cover up the bruises at school.
Teachers had twice noticed marks on her face and referred her to social services last March, but the case was dropped within days and the following month Sara was taken out of school.
Neighbours also reported hearing “fever-pitch” screaming coming from the family home, with one telling jurors that she could hear the sound of Batool shouting abuse and locking a child in a separate room.
Stressing it was not the role of the courts to comment on the authorities, Mr Justice Cavanagh did say that Sara’s death and abuse show the “dangers of unsupervised homeschooling of vulnerable children”.
It comes as education secretary Bridget Phillipson introduces a “landmark” children’s bill to help protect them, which includes a register which identifies children in England who are not currently attending school as well as increased powers for councils.
In his trial, Sharif initially blamed Batool for the violence before dramatically accepting “full responsibility” on the seventh day of cross-examination, leaving jurors open-mouthed and tearful.
He confessed to beating his daughter with a metal pole on her stomach even while she lay dying, but later backtracked and denied burning or biting her.
Meanwhile, bite marks on Sara’s arm and thigh did not match either Sharif or Malik, with Batool refusing to provide dental impressions.
Sara had been placed in her father’s care in 2019, after an acrimonious custody battle which saw her placed in foster care.
In documents later released by the family court, it emerged that concerns were raised about Sara’s care within a week of her birth in 2013, with her parents known to social services as early as 2010.
Surrey County Council repeatedly raised “significant concerns” that Sara was likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents.
There were three sets of family court proceedings, but allegations that Sharif was physically abusing Sara and her siblings were never tested in court.
Sara was repeatedly returned to her parents’ care before finally being placed with her father and stepmother, four years before she was murdered.
Sir Keir Starmer described the case as “awful” and stressed the importance of safeguards for children being homeschooled.
Children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said the case highlighted “profound weaknesses in our child protection system”.
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