Sara Sharif: How one trial laid bare the brutally short life of a 10-year-old schoolgirl
“She was very beautiful, an angel, nice, cheerful,” a tearful Urfan Şerif told Old Bailey as he described his daughter Sara Şerif’s love of eating chicken biryani and playing the guitar.
But just days later, he would take full responsibility for her traumatic death and admit to a campaign of abuse in which the 10-year-old suffered more than 25 fractures, bite marks, traumatic brain injuries and burns from a hot iron.
During the trial, horrific details emerged of the brutality inflicted on the “happy” and “spoiled” schoolgirl, whose father told police officers he was “legally punishing” her after she misbehaved.
Sharif, who called the non-emergency 101 line after fleeing to Pakistan on August 10 last year, told Surrey Police he was a “cruel father” who had not planned to kill his daughter but had lost his temper.
However, it soon emerged that he had been attacked several times in the months before he was killed. Trapped in the family home in Woking, she was the victim of repeated beatings and scalds, was forced to drop out of school and was forced to do laundry for her stepmother, wearing a headscarf to hide her growing number of bruises and wounds.
Despite the concerns of neighbors who heard screams and cries and questions from primary school teachers about the cause of the injuries, social services were unaware of the full extent of the brutality the young girl was facing.
Both her father and stepmother were found guilty of murder, while her uncle, Faisal Malik, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death. While appeal proposals to reduce the sentences were rejected, it was decided that Sharif would be sentenced to at least 40 years in prison, Batool to 31 years, and Malik to 16 years.
Born in 2013 to Sharif and his ex-wife Olga, Sara’s short life has not been easy. The couple, who met online in 2009 shortly before Sharif’s visa expired, soon accused each other of harassment and split acrimoniously in 2014, with Sara sent to foster care.
After Olga made domestic violence allegations against the Sheriff, Sara was returned to her mother’s care by the Guildford family courts in 2016, while her father was ordered to run a domestic violence perpetrators programme.
A course evaluation, in which he attended only 10 of 16 sessions, found he was “very manipulative” and unable to listen, show empathy or explore past behavior.
In cross-examination, he denied the allegations that he had hit Sara’s mother by swearing and claimed that he was the victim. He has repeatedly denied claims that he is the common denominator, given that three of his previous partners have accused him of locking them in rooms and hiding their passports.
Despite concerns from social services given Sharif’s history of alleged domestic violence, he was granted custody of Sara in 2019 after the young girl made allegations of abuse against her mother.
Instead of providing a safe haven for her young daughter after years of wandering from house to house, she faced abuse and humiliation as her new wife, Beinash Batool, stood on the sidelines and watched.
As early as May 2021, when he was just seven years old, Batool had sent the following message to his sister: “Urfan beat Sara badly. She was literally beaten black, covered in bruises.”
“I really feel sorry for Sara, the poor girl can’t walk. I really want to report her.”
Given that Sharif left his phone in Pakistan and did not provide detailed information to access his Google Drive, Batool’s harrowing updates to his sisters are one key piece of evidence linking Sara’s injuries to his violent outbursts.
In other messages from February 2022, Sara was heard vomiting while eating, experiencing anxiety, and Sharif beating her for “misbehaving”.
In another message he wrote: “[If] “I won’t be able to forgive myself if something happens to Sara.”
Despite this, Batool never reported her husband to social services and helped cover Sara’s bruises by keeping her away from school; The harassment against the young girl increased even more.
While the family lived in a cramped flat in West Byfleet, neighbors reported hearing constant screaming and crying, Batool losing his temper and hearing locked doors rattling.
During the time she lived with the couple from November 2022 to April 2023, Chloe Redwin told jurors she often heard an adult female voice yelling “Shut up,” “Shut up, you bastard” and “Shut up, you bastard,” and a teenage girl’s screams were heard.
Another neighbor once approached their apartment when disturbing noises reached “fever level”, only to have Batool slam the door in his face.
After moving into a semi-detached council house in Woking with Sharif’s brother Faisal Malik, their new neighbor Judith Lozeron noticed that Sara was never seen smiling and was told that she was being home-schooled because she had been bullied for wearing a headscarf.
Despite Batool’s claims in January 2023 that her decision to wear a hijab was motivated by the girl’s interest in Islam, the prosecution told jurors it was indicative of her need to hide her scars.
The primary school noted that Sara had a bruise under her left eye in June 2022, followed by a bruise on her chin and a dark mark on her right eye in March 2023. He gave conflicting accounts of how his injuries occurred and the school contacted Children’s Single Point of Access for advice and it was agreed that referral to social services was necessary.
However, after the Easter break, she was unable to return to her classmates and was kept at home, at the constant mercy of her controlling father.
Four months later, she was found dead in her bunk bed in an empty house, with a handwritten note next to her body: “I am Urfan Şerif, who beat my daughter to death.
“I swear, it wasn’t my intention to kill him. But I lost. I’m running away because I’m scared.”
The autopsy revealed the gruesome nature of his death. Sara had recently suffered 71 injuries; These included a brain hemorrhage, multiple bruises on his lungs, a rare hyoid bone fracture in his neck, and a large ulceration on his hip from an iron burn.
There were human bite marks all over his body; evidence showed he was hooded, beaten, and restrained while boiling water was poured on his ankles.
In a shocking confession that left jurors speechless in court, Sharif admitted that he strangled her with his bare hands, beat her with a cricket bat, a metal pole and a mobile phone, and even hit her in the stomach when she was about to die.
After six days of claiming his wife was the culprit and accusing her of “psychopathic” behavior, the taxi driver admitted he beat her because he was angry at her for vomiting and soiling herself.
His dirty clothes were found outside, while the brown packing tape used to restrain him as the three defendants tried to cover their tracks was also found in trash cans outside. Following a police search, traces of blood, a vacuum cleaner and a cricket bat were found on the kitchen floor, while a Marks and Spencer belt was also found in an outbuilding.
Within two hours of his death, the trio had booked a flight to Islamabad for the next day, and Batool was heard calmly organizing the details over the phone with a travel agent.
Arriving in Islamabad in the early hours, Sharif alerted police to his actions, sparking an international manhunt, but he did not return to the UK until more than a month later, when Pakistani authorities began arresting his wider family to apply pressure.
The prosecutor accused Sharif, after claiming that he returned voluntarily, “When you went to Pakistan, you had no plan to return. Your plan was to go so you could get away with what you did.”
But his credibility was damaged and jurors found both him and Batool guilty of murdering the schoolgirl, while his brother was also found guilty of causing or allowing the girl’s death.
Mr Justice Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday, telling jurors the case was “extremely stressful and traumatic”.
