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Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother have been found guilty of her murder, after inflicting a campaign of abuse which saw the schoolgirl being hooded, restrained and beaten during her short life.
The 10-year-old died after suffering a catalogue of injuries which included a traumatic brain injury, 25 fractures, an ulcerated burn to her buttocks, human bite marks and scalding wounds.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, had alerted Surrey Police to her death after calling their non-emergency 101 line in the early hours of 10 August last year after fleeing to Pakistan with Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, and her uncle, Faisal Malik.
He confessed that he had “beat her up too much” for being “naughty”, and that he had “legally punished” her before catching a flight to Islamabad from Heathrow Airport to evade justice.
Her body was discovered in a bunk bed at the family home in Woking, Surrey, with a post-mortem quickly ascertaining that she had suffered appalling treatment in the months before her death.
After six days of cross-examination at the Old Bailey, which saw Sharif repeatedly assert that it was his younger wife Batool, 30, who had been abusing Sara while he was at work, he dramatically took full responsibility and told jurors he had inflicted violence upon the young girl.
He admitted throttling her with his bare hands and battering her with a cricket bat, metal pole and mobile phone, even whacking her in the stomach as she lay dying on 8 August.
At times becoming emotional, he told the jurors, many of whom were sat open-mouthed: “She died because of me. I didn’t want to kill her.” Branded a coward by the prosecutor, he accepted that he had restrained his young daughter, and had beaten her after becoming angry when she vomited or soiled herself.
He denied he had anything to do with human bite marks on her arm and domestic iron burns on her bottom, and repeated that he didn’t want to harm her.
Dental impressions taken of Sharif and his younger brother Malik, 29, had ruled them out of causing the bite marks on her arm and thigh, while Batool had refused to take part in the process.
WhatsApp messages showed that violence against the young girl was a common occurrence in the household, and had been occurring as far back as May 2021. Her stepmother had written to her sister that Sara had been abused so badly that she was unable to walk, saying: “Urfan beat the crap out of Sara. She’s covered in bruises, literally beaten black.”
In other messages, she spoke of wanting to report her husband to social services, and fretted over how she would cover Sara’s injuries in order to send her to school.
They were accompanied by pictures of a grim-faced and bruised Sara, with the message: “Look what he’s doing. Delete the pictures.”
Batool repeatedly complained to her sister that Sharif was hitting Sara for being “naughty” “rude and rebellious” and because she had cut up his clothes, hidden keys and torn up documents.
Teachers recorded Sara had a bruise under her left eye in June 2022 and then in March 2023, a bruise on her chin and a dark mark on her right eye.
The school contacted Children’s Single Point of Access for advice, and it was agreed that a referral to social services was needed. However, Sara was removed from the classroom in April 2023, just four months before her death, with her family claiming that she was going to be homeschooled.
It had also been noted that in January she had begun wear a hijab despite none of her other female family members doing so, which the prosecution said was indicative of efforts to conceal her bruises.
Neighbours were among those who had also raised concerns, after constant screaming and shouting was heard coming from the family home, as well as aggressive language and the use of swear words.
Prior to moving to Woking, Sharif and Batool had resided in a flat in West Byfleet, with their neighbour Rebecca Spencer telling jurors that the distressing cries had reached “fever pitch” while she could also hear the sounds of rattling locked doors.
Another neighbour overheard a female adult voice shouting “Shut the f*** up” and “Shut the f*** up you bastard” as well as smacking sounds, and a distressed scream that sounded like it came from a child aged seven or eight.
Each of these witnesses reported seeing Sara carrying out chores around the family home, which included being the only one to sort the laundry and take out the rubbish.
Yet after she was permanently at home and under the control of Sharif, it appears the violence towards her escalated dramatically, with a pathologist determining that she had suffered a number of repetitive blunt force trauma injuries in the three months before her death.
On 8 August, Sharif admitted using the metal pole to strike her abdomen while she lay dying in the bedroom, after being called home from his taxi shift by Batool.
Later that evening, Batool and Sharif set about booking flights to Pakistan the next day, Mr Emlyn Jones said.
The prosecutor told the jury that all three defendants played their part in the violence and it was “inconceivable” that just one of them had acted alone.
Her soiled leggings and nappy were discarded in the garden near a jetwash with packaging tape and hoods in the bin, jurors were told.
Upon their guilty verdicts, Mr Justice Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday, telling jurors the case had been “extremely stressful and traumatic”.
After the verdicts, Chief Superintendent Mark Chapman said: “Surrey Police’s thoughts continue to be with Sara’s mother and her siblings and anyone who knew Sara in her short life.
“Through the course of this prosecution members of the public will have heard or read horrific detail around the injuries Sara sustained or the neglect that was administered to her. We would like to reach out to those people and say our thought are with them also.”
He said the circumstances of the case were “unusual” as he paid tribute to the call handler who spoke to Sharif when he called to report his daughter’s death from Pakistan.
He said: “Surrey Police worked tirelessly on this case in the early days with our partner agencies in this country and overseas.
“It is a hugely complex legal and procedural framework that we needed to navigate in terms of seeking individuals that were wanted for serious matters in this country but were overseas in Pakistan.
“That work was ongoing for many days and weeks following the discovery of Sara’s body. I would like to thank those agencies for their continued support in this investigation.”
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