‘You are sadists’: Father and stepmother jailed for life over murder of 10-year-old Sara Sharif
The father and stepmother of a 10-year-old girl found dead in her UK home have been sentenced to life in prison for her murder after a trial heard of years of abuse amounting to “torture”.
Warning: This story contains graphic content that may be upsetting.
Urfan Sharif was jailed on Tuesday for a maximum of 40 years and Beinash Batool was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years after the couple was convicted of murder last week.
Sara’s uncle, Faisal Sharif, who was also found guilty of causing or allowing the girl’s death, was sentenced to 16 years.
After the girl died in August 2023, the three relatives fled to Pakistan, where her father phoned UK police to say he “legally punished her, and she died,” prosecutors said.
They said Urfan told operators he “beat her up too much” but did not intend to kill her.
London police then went to the family’s home where they discovered Sara’s body under a blanket in a bunk bed.
The three relatives returned to Britain more than a month after they fled and were arrested on suspicion of murder at London’s Gatwick airport.
Beinash Batool (left), Urfan Sharif and his brother Faisal Malik in their mugshots. (Reuters: Surrey Police)
‘Can only be described as … torture’
The trial in the Central Criminal Court exposed details of what was described as a campaign of “serious and repeated violence”.
Jurors were told Sara suffered more than 70 fresh injuries and many older ones, including burns, bone fractures and bite marks.
Prosecutors called the treatment of Sara a “campaign of abuse”. (Supplied: Surrey Police)
“Sara’s death was the culmination of years of neglect, frequent assaults and what can only be described as the torture of this small child,” Justice John Cavanagh said.
“The degree of cruelty is almost inconceivable … None of you have shown a shred of true remorse.”
Urfan and Batool appeared in the court’s dock where they heard a statement read on behalf of Sara’s mother Olga Domin.
“You are sadists, although even this word is not enough for you,” her statement read.
“I would say you are executioners.”
During the trial, Urfan initially blamed Batool for Sara’s death but later told jurors he took “full responsibility”.
He admitted to throttling his daughter with his hands, and battering her with a cricket bat and other objects.
Prosecutors said the violence became so normalised that no one reacted when she appeared with bruises at a family barbecue.
Justice Cavanagh said her parents made her wear a hijab not for religious reasons but to “cover up the bruises that were all over Sara’s body”.
“The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure,” he said.
The judge said Sara was forced to wear a hijab to hide her bruises. (Supplied: Surrey Police )
Sara was described as a feisty girl who dreamed of being a fairy tale princess.
Her spirit came across in a video taken two days before her death showing her dancing at home, despite multiple broken bones and iron burns on her bottom.
“Despite everything, she smiled at the camera,” Justice Cavanagh said.
The trial raised questions about failures by social services and authorities to intervene, with politicians calling for a review of what went wrong to prevent a repeat of such cases.
Children’s Commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, said in a statement after the trial that the child protection system had failed Sara.
“Her death is a heartbreaking reminder of the profound weaknesses in our child protection system that, as a country, we have failed time and time again to correct,” she said.
“We have been here before — and each time we have said ‘never again.'”
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