Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother are jailed for life for schoolgirl’s murder after years of ‘horrific suffering’

Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother have been sentenced to life in prison for her murder after subjecting her to years of ‘horrific suffering’.

The 10-year-old schoolgirl suffered ‘unimaginable pain’ during more than two years of abuse and was ultimately tortured to death by her father Urfan Sharif, 43, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30. 

Mr Justice Cavanagh began his sentencing remarks by describing the degree of cruelty shown towards Sara as ‘inconceivable’, and jailed Sharif to a minimum term of 40 years, Batool to 33 years and Malik to 16 years in prison.

He said Sharif was mainly responsible as Sara’s father while Batool and Malik had not shown any remorse, as he told the court: ‘This poor child was battered with severe force, again and again’ and she was treated as ‘the family servant despite her young age’.

Sara was hooded, bitten, burned and eventually beaten to death during a campaign of abuse before her body was found with at least 71 injuries at the family’s home in Woking, Surrey, last year – including a broken neck.

Sharif and Batool were found guilty of murder last Wednesday, while her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, was convicted of causing or allowing a child’s death.

Sara was injured with a variety of weapons including being scalded with boiling liquid when she was restrained, being beaten with a cricket bat, being hit with a metal pole broken off from a children’s high chair and being burned with an iron.

‘The abuse – which for anyone else would be exceptional – had become normalised for this little girl and you persuaded her that she deserved it,’ the judge said 

The defendants did not react as the judge sentenced them, and looked down at the floor throughout the proceedings. There were shouts of ‘evil’ and cheers from the public gallery as Sharif was taken down to the cells.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge told Batool ‘you did nothing to protect Sara’ but he could not be sure if she ‘actively participated’ until the end.

He said it was ‘clear Sara was singled out amongst the children for this treatment’.

‘I have no doubt that you both cared much less for Sara because she was not Batool’s natural child. She was treated as a skivvy in the family from a very young age.

‘Neither of you had any concern for the happiness or quality of life for this child. You treated her like she was worthless. The degree of cruelty involved was almost inconceivable.

‘The pretext of homeschooling her was a ruse, to cover up and continue the abuse. At the time she was being subjected to despicable abuse, she was also deprived of an education.

‘She was made to wear a hijab to cover up the bruises which were all over her body.

‘Sara was a brave, feisty and spirited child and she wasn’t as submissive as you wanted her to be. I have no doubt that your ego and sense of self importance was boosted by your power over her.

‘She wasn’t badly behaved. She was a normal child. The beatings started when she was six or seven.’

The judge described how Sara was so terrified by the violence she would throw up or wet herself, before being punished further. 

Speaking to Batool, the judge said: ‘Often when Sharif was at work, you would call him home when you thought Sara was misbehaving to deal with it.’

He said to the father: ‘She would throw up because of this campaign of violence and it is hard to contemplate. You punished her Sharif, because of her physical reaction to your abuse.’

Mr Justice Cavanagh said the house was too small for Sara’s uncle Malik to be unaware of the abuse, saying it was ‘preposterous’ to suggest otherwise. He said Sara’s half-siblings would have also heard their father beat Sara.

The judge said rarely had a jury at the Old Bailey had to endure such a case and ‘few [cases] can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child’.

He said that Sharif and Batool made her wear a hijab and put makeup on her to cover up her injuries. 

The judge said of Sharif’s confession to the killing mid-way through his trial: ‘Your stated remorse was nothing more than a ploy.’

‘When she died, she had burn marks on her ankles so it was likely she was tied up and boiling water poured on her ankles.

‘This treatment is nothing short of gruesome. It must have been so painful, especially at the hands of her parents.’

He said the evil father was responsible for the small child’s head injuries and the couple ‘jointly inflicted’ the iron injury on her buttocks.

Sara had six bite marks on her body which were carried out by Batool, who was ‘complicit and comfortable’ with the abuse, said the judge.

He said: ‘She was trussed up with masking tape and skipping rope, even worse she was hooded…this treatment of a 10-year-old is nothing short of gruesome.’

The judge said Sharif and Batool ‘sprung into action to protect’ themselves after her death, and called their reaction to the child dying ‘chilling’.

Sara’s father had beaten her with a metal pole after coming home and finding her ‘floppy’ in Batool’s arms, believing she was ‘faking illness’.

‘The last thing Sara felt before she died was her own father beating her for supposedly faking injury.’ 

Addressing the defendants in the dock, Mr Justice Cavanagh said what happened to the 10-year-old was ‘almost inconceivable’ and that none of them had shown ‘a shred of remorse’.

The judge added: ‘It is no exaggeration to describe the campaign of abuse against Sara as torture.’

Speaking to Sharif, he said: ‘Incredibly you took up the metal pole and beat her vigorously for punishing her for pretending to be ill. 

‘Sara’s body was washed and put in the bed. The metal pole was hidden away. A pressure washer may have been used to wash her in the backyard.’

Sharif removed the Ring doorbell to remove evidence before they fled to Pakistan, it was heard.

‘You all went into hiding in Pakistan. You took part in a bizarre video statement, complaining about the pressure that authorities were putting on your family and only referring to Sara’s death as an ‘incident’.

‘You left because Sharif’s family told you to due to the heat on the rest of the family’.

Speaking about Sara, the judge said ‘she was a beautiful little girl, small for her age’.

‘She cared for her little brother. She had an unquenchable spirit and loved to sing and dance. Despite everything, she smiled at the camera.

‘One of the more heartbreaking aspects of this case are the letters she wrote apologising for answering back and saying ‘please forgive me’.’

Mr Justice Cavanagh said the tragic case highlights the dangers of unsupervised homeschooling and raise questions about whether more could have been done to prevent’ Sara’s death.

Sharif wiped away tears as the judge said: ‘You plainly derived grim satisfaction from the abuse of Sara. She must have been in a constant state of terror.’

‘The poor child was vomiting and soiled herself only to find this [made it worse]. She wasn’t even allowed to go to the toilet, she was put in pull up nappies. She was burned with an iron and boiling water was poured on her ankles.

‘You were her father, you should have been her protector. You singled her out for harsh treatment because she was a girl and willing to stand up to you.’

The judge said that her older brother was told Sara was ‘inferior’ and encouraged to ‘bully’ her.

Mr Justice Cavanagh said he was satisfied Sharif had assaulted other women and that he had a history of assaulting vulnerable woman, telling Sharif: ‘You are suffused with self-pity.’

He said Sharif and Batool intended for Sara to live a life ‘full of misery’.

Today, as her abusers were sentenced at the Old Bailey, Sara’s grieving mother Olga Domin said she could not comprehend the level of sadism inflicted on her daughter.

In a moving victim impact statement, she said: ‘Sara was always smiling. She had her own unique character. The only thing I had left to give to my daughter was to give her a beautiful Catholic funeral that she deserves.

‘She is now an angel who looks down on us from heaven, she is no longer experiencing violence. To this day, I can’t understand how someone can be such a sadist to a child.’

Ms Domin said of Sharif, Batool and Malik: ‘You are sadists although even this word is not enough for you. I would say, you are executioners.’

She watched proceedings remotely via a video-link from her native Poland.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC told the court: ‘The violence used was not just excessive but was sustained.

‘There was an unimaginable level of pain, suffering and anxiety caused to Sara for a long period prior to her death.’

‘There were other children in the house and it can only be sensibly assumed that some of those assaults happened in front of other children.’

Teachers had twice noticed marks on her face and referred her to social services last March, but the case was dropped within days and the following month Sara was taken out of school.

Within hours of Sara’s death, Sharif and Batool had booked flights to Pakistan for the whole family, including her siblings and half siblings.

The defendants returned to the UK on September 13 2023 – leaving the children behind – and were detained within minutes of a flight touching down at Gatwick airport.

In his trial, Sharif initially blamed Batool for the violence before dramatically accepting ‘full responsibility’, leaving jurors open mouthed and tearful.

He later appeared to backtrack, denying he had bitten or burned Sara or covered her head in a hood.

Jurors heard that bite marks on Sara’s arm and thigh did not match either Sharif or Malik and only Batool had refused to give impressions of her teeth.

They heard that Sharif had been granted custody in 2019, despite earlier allegations of child abuse and arrests for alleged controlling behaviour towards ex-girlfriends.

Sharif spent his first six days of evidence denying abusing Sara and blaming his ‘psycho wife’ for causing her injuries.

He pointed at his wife and called her an ‘animal’ for abusing and biting his daughter.

But on his seventh day in the witness box Sharif dramatically told the court he had something to say before admitting responsibility for Sara’s death.

Jurors wept as he confessed to beating her repeatedly with the cricket bat and metal pole when she was tied up.  He admitted to beating Sara as far back as 2021.

In documents later released by the family court, it emerged that concerns were raised about Sara’s care within a week of her birth in 2013, with her parents known to social services as early as 2010.

Surrey County Council repeatedly raised ‘significant concerns’ that Sara was likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents.

There were three sets of family court proceedings, but allegations that Sharif was physically abusing Sara and her siblings were never tested in court.

Sara was repeatedly returned to her parents’ care before finally being placed with her father and stepmother, four years before she was murdered.

Sharif came to the UK on a student visa in 2003 and dated three Polish women in an effort to find a wife to get an EU passport so he could remain in the UK.

All three women went to the police to accuse him of domestic abuse, saying they had been assaulted by him and held against their will.

He married the third woman, Sara’s mother Olga. He met Batool in 2015 and split from Olga around the same time.

While married to Olga around 2011, Urfan went to Pakistan and had an Islamic marriage to his first cousin but he insisted the marriage was never consummated.

Various relatives were crammed into his house in Hammond Road, Woking, and neighbours often heard the distressed screams of a child coming from the home.

One neighbour said she had never seen Sara smile on the occasions she was allowed out of the house.

Despite her Muslim background, Sara had attended St Mary’s Church of England school in Byfleet where teachers had noticed bruises on her.

Referrals were made to social services after Sara gave different stories about the injuries, but tragically nothing was done.

The NSPCC has now called on the Government to recognise that ‘fundamental’ reform to children’s protection services is needed to prevent ‘similar tragedies’.

In a statement released after the sentencing, Maria Neophytou, acting CEO of the NSPCC, said: ‘The Child Safeguarding Practice Review must undertake an exhaustive search for answers so we can understand how this horrific abuse was able to happen, and for so long.

‘The recommendations must then be quickly implemented, to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in Surrey, and across the UK.

‘At the same time the Government must recognise something more fundamental has to change.

‘Sara has now joined a lengthening list from recent years, which also includes Arthur Labinjo Hughes, Star Hobson and Alfie Phillips, where horrific abuse from a parent or carer has directly led to the death of a young child.

‘To significantly reduce the likelihood of more of these terrible cases emerging, there needs to be substantial, nationwide reform and investment in the services which we rely on to keep our children safe.’

Sir Keir Starmer described the case as ‘awful’ and stressed the importance of safeguards for children being home-schooled.

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said the case highlighted ‘profound weaknesses in our child protection system’.

Maria Neophytou, acting chief executive of the NSPCC, said it was an ‘absolutely shocking case’ raising ‘crucial questions’ about child protection.

Rachael Wardell, from Surrey County Council, said that until an independent safeguarding review has concluded, a ‘complete picture cannot be understood or commented upon’.

Libby Clark, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Sara Sharif was a lively and joyful 10-year-old girl whose life was tragically cut short by the very people who should have protected and cared for her.

‘The evidence in this case painted a devastating picture of the suffering Sara experienced leading up to her death and the campaign of abuse she was being subjected to in her own family home.

‘Her injuries revealed the extent of the cruelty inflicted upon her, while the defendants’ actions after her death demonstrated a shocking disregard for her life as they attempted to flee the country to evade justice, thinking only of themselves.

‘Whilst her father and stepmother were responsible for subjecting Sara to horrific abuse, her uncle took no action to stop or report it.

‘Today’s sentences reflect the cruelty and gravity of their crimes – and while no sentence can bring Sara back, we hope this outcome is able to provide some small comfort to all those that knew and loved her.’