Sara Sharif told a social worker she felt safe living with her father and stepmother because “they don’t hit me”, four years before she died from their brutal campaign of torture.
The schoolgirl’s haunting words are buried in hundreds of pages of private family court papers that were disclosed after an application by media organisations, including the Guardian.
Asked what made her happy, Sara replied: “Movie night and when people play with me … When people be nice to me.”
The then-six-year-old made the comments during a welfare check after moving in with her father, Urfan Sharif, and his wife, Beinash Batool, who was known to Sara as Ammi, an Urdu word for mum.
“I like living with Ammi and Daddy because I am safe and they don’t hit me,” she told the social worker.
Sara completed worksheets about her feelings and said she loved school and that her siblings made her laugh. When asked what made her feel sad, Sara replied: “When people punch me, when Mum slaps me and people who shout at me, it makes me really worried. Ammi doesn’t hit me or slap me, she puts me in the naughty corner.”
When asked what made her feel safe, she replied: “When nobody hits me and I live with Ammi and Daddy.”
The social worker recommended Sara and her sibling continue residing with their stepmother and father, despite being aware of a history of abuse allegations against Sharif.
In a report, the social worker, who had been in the role for only nine months and cannot be named for legal reasons, detailed how Sharif had been accused of assaulting Sara’s mother, Olga Domin, 38, and siblings. But the report concluded: “I do not have any concerns for the children remaining in the care of their father.”
The documents reveal that a senior judge, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, accepted the inexperienced social worker’s recommendations and made the ultimate decision in October 2019 that Sara and her sibling should live with Sharif, 43, and Batool, 30.
Within months of the final order, Sara began being subjected to a gruesome campaign of violence, which included being tied up, hooded with a plastic bag, beaten, bitten and burnt with an iron and hot water. The 10-year-old was found dead with about 100 injuries in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August 2023.
Sharif and Batool were jailed for life on Tuesday for Sara’s murder after an eight-week trial at the Old Bailey. Sara’s paternal uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, who was living with the family at the time, was found not guilty of murder, but convicted of causing or allowing her death.
The misery Sara suffered in her short life was laid bare in the documents, which revealed she was placed into foster care twice by the age of two and subjected to three sets of family court proceedings before her father was ultimately awarded custody.
Sara had been living with Batool and Sharif since March 2019 after allegedly reporting being abused by her mother. The couple later applied, with Domin’s consent, for Sara and her sibling to live with them.
The social worker’s report was submitted as evidence before the final hearing in October 2019. It outlined the recent allegations against Domin, stating that Sara said she was “pinched, punched, threatened with lighters and being drowned in the bath by her mother”. As with other claims against both parents, the allegations were not tested in court.
The report also included the Surrey county council social worker’s conversations with Sara at her primary school on 18 and 26 September 2019. Sara was asked about different emotions and told the social worker she felt “all the bad ones” before repeating her allegations against her mother.
During the second visit, when asked what upset her about her life at that moment, she replied: “When people shout at me. Mum hits me and shouts.”
When asked what she liked about her life, she replied: “When me and Ammi colour together.”
But within months of the conversation taking place, Batool messaged her sister to say Sharif was a “psycho” who was always hitting the children.
