Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother guilty of murdering schoolgirl found with over 70 injuries

Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother were found guilty of her murder, after inflicting a campaign of abuse who saw the student was hooded, restrained and beaten during her short life.

The ten-year-old died afterwards suffered a catalog of injuries that include traumatic brain injury, 25 fractures, a burn on the buttocks, traces of human bites and burns.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, warned Surrey Police to her death after she called their 101 emergency line in the early hours of August 10 last year after fleeing to Pakistan with Sarah’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, and her uncle, Faisal Malik.

He admitted that he “beat her up too much” because she was “naughty” and that he “legally punished” her before catching a flight to Islamabad from Heathrow Airport to avoid justice.

Her body was discovered in a bunk bed in the family home in WokingSurrey, with a post mortem quickly establishing that she had suffered horrific treatment in the months before her death.

After six days of cross-examination in The Old Baileyafter which Sharif repeatedly claimed that his younger wife, Batool, 30, abused Sarah while he was at work, dramatically took full responsibility and told jurors that he had inflicted violence on the young girl.

He admitted to choking her with his bare hands and beating her with a cricket bat, a metal pole and a mobile phone, even punching her in the stomach as she lay dying on August 8.

He became emotional at times, he told jurors, many of whom sat open-mouthed: “She died because of me. I didn’t want to kill her.” The prosecutor called him a coward, and accepted that he restrained his young daughter and beat her after he got angry when she threw up or soiled herself.

He denied having anything to do with the human bite marks on her arm and the domestic iron burns on her bottom, and reiterated that he meant no harm to her.

Dental impressions taken by Sharif and his younger brother Malik, 29, ruled them out as causing the bite marks on her arm and thigh, while Batool refused to take part in the process.

The WhatsApp messages showed it violence against the girl was a common occurrence in the household, and it was happening back in May 2021. Her stepmother wrote to her sister that Sara was abused so much that she couldn’t walk, saying: “Urfan beat Sara. She’s covered in bruises, literally beaten black.”

In other messages, she said she wanted to report her husband to social services and worried about how she would cover Sarah’s injuries in order to send her to school.

Next to them were pictures of a sullen, bruised Sara, with the message: “Look what she’s doing.” Delete the images.”

Batool repeatedly complained to her sister that Sharif was hitting Sarah for being “naughty”, “rude and rebellious” and for cutting his clothes, hiding keys and tearing up documents.

Teachers noted that Sara had a bruise under her left eye in June 2022, and then in March 2023, a bruise on her chin and a dark spot on her right eye.

The school contacted the Single Point of Access for Children for advice and it was agreed that a referral to social services was necessary. However, Sara was removed from the classroom in April 2023, just four months before her death, and her family claimed she would be home-schooled.

She was also noted to have started wearing a hijab in January, although none of the other female family members did, which, according to the prosecution, is an indication of an effort to cover up her bruises.

Neighbors were among those who expressed concern, after constant screams and shouts, as well as aggressive language and swearing, were heard coming from the family home.

Before moving to Woking, Sharif and Batool lived in a flat in West Byfleet, and their neighbor Rebecca Spencer told jurors that the disturbing screams reached a “peak” while she could also hear the sounds of the door being locked.

Another neighbor heard an adult female voice yelling “Shut her up” and “Shut her up, you bastard,” as well as sniffing sounds and an agitated scream that sounded like it was coming from a seven or eight-year-old child.

Each of these witnesses stated that they saw Sarah doing chores around the family home, including being the only one to sort the laundry and take out the trash.

However, once she was permanently at home and under Sharif’s control, the violence against her appears to have escalated dramatically, with a pathologist finding that she had suffered a series of repeated blunt force injuries in the three months before her death.

On August 8, Sharif admitted to using a metal pole to hit her in the stomach while she was dying in her bedroom, after Batool called him home from his taxi shift.

Later that evening, Batool and Sharif began booking flights to Pakistan the next day, Emlyn Jones said.

The prosecutor told the jury that all three defendants played their part in the violence and that it was “inconceivable” that only one of them acted alone.

Her soiled leggings and nappies were dumped in the garden near the laundry with tape and hoods in a bin, jurors were told.

Following the guilty verdict, Judge Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday, telling jurors the case had been “extremely stressful and traumatic”.

Following the verdicts, Chief Superintendent Mark Chapman said: “Surrey Police’s thoughts continue to go out to Sarah’s mother and her siblings and everyone who knew Sarah in her short life.

“During this prosecution, the public will hear or read the horrific details of the injuries Sarah suffered or the neglect she suffered. We would like to reach out to those people and say that our thoughts are with them.”

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 the death of his daughter from Pakistan.

He said: “Surrey Police worked tirelessly on this case in the early days with our partner agencies in this country and abroad.

“It is an extremely complex legal and procedural framework that we had to navigate in terms of searching for people who are wanted for serious matters in this country but are abroad in Pakistan.

“That work lasted for many days and weeks after the discovery of Sarah’s body. I would like to thank those agencies for their continued support in this investigation.”