Sara Sharif “never smiled once” in the months before she was allegedly murdered by three members of her family, a neighbour has told jurors.
The Old Bailey heard that the 10-year-old girl had not mixed with her family during a summer’s party, and that neighbours had been told she was homeschooled due to bullying.
Father Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of carrying out a campaign of abuse against Sara, culminating in her death on August 8 last year.
The prosecution has alleged that Sara was taken out of school and wore a hijab to hide the injuries to her face and head.
On Thursday, Judith Lozeron told jurors the Sharif family had moved next door to her home in Woking, Surrey, in April last year.
On how Sara seemed to her, Mrs Lozeron said: “Never was she smiling when I saw her, not one time.
“I was told she was bullied at school for wearing a hijab and she was being home schooled because of that.
“Every single time I saw her she wore a hijab – she was the only member of the family who wore that.”
Because Sara’s forehead and part of her face was covered up, Mrs Lozeron could not see how she looked, jurors heard.
The witness said she was “completely astonished” at the difference when she was later shown an older picture of Sara without the head covering.
Mrs Lozeron would often see and chat with members of the family in the adjoining garden and they were “always very nicely dressed” and “quite smart”, the court heard.
However, she did not see Sara as much as the other family members.
She said: “Sometimes she was pegging out washing in the back garden. I saw her a couple of times in the car when they were going out somewhere but really very little.”
She last saw Sara on 23 July 2023 when the family held a birthday party in the garden.
Mrs Lozeron said is was a “really lovely summer’s day” and Sara sat in a garden chair with a baby, accompanied by two aunts.
Prosecutor Ben Lloyd asked about her impressions of how Sara was treated within the family.
She replied: “I thought it strange… that she didn’t mix more with the whole family. I thought that it was odd.”
She that she had she felt “some separateness” which she did not understand.
Cross-examining for Batool, Caroline Carberry KC suggested that taxi driver Sharif would “belittle” his wife.
Mrs Lozeron agreed, saying that on one occasion her husband had tackled Sharif about it.
She told jurors: “He said ‘I don’t think you should speak like that’ and and he never did again, ever, not in that way. I thought it was fantastic.”
The witness told jurors that she saw Sharif’s brother Malik “fairly often” at the house and understood he was reading business studies at Portsmouth University.
The prosecution has alleged that Sara died on 8 August 2023 and within hours the defendants had booked a flight out of the country.
Two days later, Sharif called police from Pakistan and said he had “beaten her up too much”.
A post-mortem examination found Sara had suffered dozens of injuries including “probable human bite marks”, an iron burn and scalding from hot water.
Jurors have heard that Batool and Sharif have blamed each other for Sara’s death and Malik denies involvement.
All three defendants, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, have denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023.
