Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother are facing life in prison after being found guilty of murdering the 10-year-old girl at the culmination of a horrifying campaign of domestic abuse.
Urfan Sharif, 42, oversaw a “culture of violent discipline” within the family, and confessed during his trial to attacks on Sara with a metal pole and a cricket bat.
When the little girl was found dead by police, tucked into an upstairs bunkbed, there were signs on her body of human bite marks, iron burns, and a litany of broken bones.
The Old Bailey heard Sara had at times been tied up with tape and a hood was placed over her head, during prolonged periods of so-called ‘punishment’ which amounted to torture.
Sharif, a taxi driver, fled with his family to Pakistan after Sara’s death on August 8, leaving behind a note confessing that he had “killed my daughter”.
Two days later, he phoned police from Islamabad to give a detailed account, telling the call operator: “I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died.”
At trial, Sharif branded his own wife Beinash Batool, 30, “evil” and told jurors she had been responsible for violence within the home, before he dramatically confessed his guilt to the jury mid-way through his evidence.
In incredible scenes in front of the jury, Sharif said he “took full responsibility” and admitted the appalling violence he had meted out to his daughter.
He appeared poised to plead guilty to murder but cowardly refused to take the step.
A jury returned its verdicts on Wednesday, finding Sharif and Batool guilty of murder.
Sara’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was cleared of murder but found guilty of causing or allowing her death.
The trial heard about a catalogue of signs stretching back over nearly 20 years of Sharif’s violent, controlling, and abusive nature.
Another child he was connected with had suffered burns and bites in 2013 and 2014, although he was not directly accused of inflicting them.
His ex-wife Olga Sharif, who is Sara’s mother, told police in 2010 that he had been violent in the home. But he suggested she had been the violent one, and police took no further action when she withdrew the complaint.
In December 2007, Sharif was arrested for false imprisonment, theft, criminal damage and common assault following allegations by an 18-year-old girlfriend.
Two years later, he was accused by another girlfriend of false imprisonment, leading to a further arrest by police.
Sharif lost custody of Sara after he was accused of waving a knife at wife Olga and attacking her, but he successfully regained access in 2019 – despite concerns of social services.
He had been ordered by a court to undertake a domestic violence perpetrator programme, and was accused during the trial of treating the court-ordered programme like a “tick box exercise”.
Neighbours of the family heard piercing screams coming from the home, while Sara’s teachers spotted possible signs of abuse, including bruising on her face.
The girl was made to wear a hijab to cover up the bruising, and ultimately she was withdrawn from school a few months before she died.
Evidence in the case showed Sara had been strangled until her neck broke and she had signs of fractured bones – past and present - across her body.
In his eight-and-a-half minute call to police from Pakistan, Sharif said his daughter was “naughty”, and added: “I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
The note he left with Sara’s body read: “It’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating.
“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it. “I am running away because I am scared.”
Prosecutors argued all three defendants must have known about the abuse inside the family home in Hammond Road in Woking, as they were accused of murder and also causing or allowing the death of a child between December 16 2022 and August 9 2023.
Before his courtroom confession, Sharif pointed the finger at his wife for the abuse and suggested he had been out much of the time driving his taxi.
He branded her “evil” and a “psycho”, and claimed he once had to jump through a window to get away from her.
Neither Batool nor Malik gave evidence during the trial.
But messages aired in court revealed Batool had told her sisters that Sharif would regularly “beat the crap” out of Sara over the course of more than two years, and she had failed to report what was going on.
By January 2023, Sara began wearing a hijab to cover up the bruises at school.
Teachers noticed marks on her face and referred her to social services in March of that year, but the case was dropped within days.
The following month, Sara was taken out of school and the violence against her intensified in the weeks before her death.
On August 8, Sara collapsed and Batool reacted by summoning Sharif home and calling her family 30 times.
Sharif’s reaction to finding his daughter lying close to death in Batool’s lap was to “whack” her in the stomach twice with a pole for “pretending”, jurors heard.
Within hours of Sara’s death, the couple were arranging flights to Pakistan for the next day for themselves and the rest of the family.
Mr Justice Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday, telling jurors the case had been “extremely stressful and traumatic”.
Detective Chief Inspector Craig Emmerson, from Surrey Police, said Sara Sharif’s murder is “one of the most difficult and distressing” cases Surrey Police has ever dealt with.
In a statement to the media outside the Old Bailey on Wednesday, he said: “The murder of a child is absolutely shocking but the abuse Sara suffered during her short life has made this case particularly disturbing.Today justice for Sara has been served and our thoughts remain with Sara’s mother and her siblings at this extremely difficult time.”
“Sara was a bright and lively little girl who loved singing and dancing.Sara’s spirit and bravery and resilience in the face of the suffering that she endured has shone through from the vast inquiries that have been undertaken in this case.“
“Sara’s young life was brought to an end as a result of the brutal abuse and unspeakable violence inflicted on her by Sharif and Batool, which Malik did nothing to prevent.
“This case has shocked and horrified not only those who knew and loved her but people across the country and around the world.”
He added: “All three defendants have only ever sought to preserve their own interests throughout this investigation and have shown no remorse for their truly dreadful behaviour.”
Chief Superintendent Mark Chapman from Surrey Police said officers’ 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 thoughts 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.
“Surrey Police worked tirelessly on this case in the early days with our partner agencies in this country and overseas”, he added.
“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.”
