The 10-year-old schoolgirl Sara Sharif was made to wear a hijab to conceal her injuries and was homeschooled in the months before she was beaten to death, a court has heard.
Sara “suffered dreadfully” and was burned with an iron, bitten and had a plastic bag taped over head before she was found dead at her family home in Woking, Surrey on 10 August last year.
But neighbours had heard the sounds of smacking and “gut-wrenching screams” coming from the family home in the years before Sara was killed, the Old Bailey heard. The shouting was often followed by a woman shouting “Shut the fuck up” and “Go to your room, you fucking bastard.”
Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, 42, her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and her paternal uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of carrying out a violent “campaign of abuse” before killing her on 8 August.
The court was told the defendants fled to Pakistan the following day. Sharif then called police to say he had beaten Sara “too much” as a punishment for being naughty. The taxi driver also left a note by Sara’s fully clothed body, saying: “I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”
The prosecutor, William Emlyn Jones KC, told the court on Tuesday that Sara began wearing a hijab in January 2023 “to conceal injuries to her face and head from the outside world”. Neighbours told police it seemed “unusual” because Sara was the only member of her family to wear a hijab.
She was withdrawn from school on 17 April 2023 and homeschooled after teachers reported seeing her with bruises on three occasions. On 10 March 2023, the second incident, Sara’s teacher, Helen Simmons, asked the schoolgirl about the two distinct bruises on her chin and right eye.
Emlyn Jones said: “Sara acted coy and tried to hide them. Miss Simmons observed that Sara would often pull her hijab to hide her face if she did not want to speak or was being told off. Sara gave multiple conflicting stories as to how she got the bruises.”
The teacher sought advice and it was agreed that a referral to social services was needed, the prosecutor added. The teacher noticed another bruise on 28 March and questioned Batool, who claimed it had been caused by a pen. Sara was withdrawn from school less than three weeks later.
“It means from April onwards, Sara was not exposed to or seen by anyone in the outside world,” Emlyn Jones said.
The prosecutor detailed some of the weapons found in the house that were believed to have been used on Sara, including a makeshift plastic hood with her bloodstains on it. “These objects are homemade hoods. They had been placed over Sara’s face and head and then taped in place,” he told jurors, adding that Batool had bought 18 rolls of parcel tape in July alone.
Jurors were shown images of the hoods, which were plastic bags wrapped in brown tape with a small hole for the mouth.
Police also found a cricket bat stained with Sarah’s blood, a rolling pin with her DNA, and lengths of black rope with her hair attached to it. Experts also said that a plastic-coated metal pole and a belt buckle appeared to have caused some of Sara’s bruises.
A neighbour told police she heard “a single high-pitched scream” on 6 August 2023, two days before Sara’s death. “It … lasted a couple of seconds and stopped suddenly. It sounded to her like the scream of someone in pain; and as she put it, ‘it didn’t sound good,’” the prosecutor said.
He added that comments from the family’s previous neighbours and messages from Batool to her sisters showed that “all was not well” in the Sharif household as far back as 2019.
Batool would often send messages about Sharif’s anger, and in May 2021 she messaged one sister to allege: “Urfan beat the crap out of Sara” and “She’s covered in bruises, literally beaten black.” She also said: “I feel really sorry for Sara” and “poor girl can’t walk”. She said “I really want to report him” – but she did not.
In February 2022, in an exchange with her other sister, Batool made a similar complaint, saying that Urfan was “beating Sara up” “cos she’s being naughty”. She went on: “Sara has anxiety, whatever she eats she vomits out.” Her sister replied: “That’s not good” and Batool went on: “She’s a child. And I think grown-up needs to understand.” She said that “Urfan’s behaviour makes her do it more”, before adding: “Something happens to Sara I will not be able to forgive myself”.
In the summer of 2022, she told one sister she could not cover up Sara’s bruises, adding: “He beat Sara up yesterday and I can’t send her to school on Monday looking like that.” The prosecutor said it seemed “her concern was with concealing what was happening from the outside world”.
A neighbour at the family’s previous home in West Byfleet, Surrey, where they lived from around 2018-2019 to April 2023, reported hearing banging and rattling coming from the property as if “someone was banging on and pushing at a door as if trying to open the door or alert someone that they were behind a door that would not open”.
Another neighbour, Chloe Redwin, reported hearing shouting and screaming at any time of the day or night.
The prosecutor said: “On occasions Ms Redwin would hear sounds of smacking, which she said were shockingly loud and would be followed by ‘gut-wrenching screams’ of young female children. Over the screaming she would hear the mother shout ‘Shut up’ and sometimes the sounds of further smacking would be heard, followed by shouting.”
The defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and to causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023.
The trial before the judge Mr Justice Cavanagh is expected to go on until 13 December.
• This article was amended on 16 October 2024 because Faisal Malik is 29, not 28 as an earlier version said.
