Sara Sharif’s dad and stepmum guilty of murder after ‘campaign of abuse’

Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother have been found guilty of murder after subjecting her to a horrific ‘campaign of abuse’ that eventually killed her.

The 10-year-old suffered more than 70 injuries shortly before her broken body was found at home in Woking, Surrey, following a call from her dad Urfan Sharif, 42, in Pakistan saying he had ‘beat her up too much’ for being ‘naughty’.

Jurors at the Old Bailey heard how she was ‘serially and severely’ beaten with a cricket bat and metal pole – right up until her dying moments. She had also been burned with an iron, scalded with boiling water and bitten.

Even more disturbing evidence of the attempts to ‘punish and control’ Sara revealed she was forced to wear nappies, bound with packing tape and had her head covered by ‘dreadful’ homemade hoods for extended periods.

Mr Justice Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday, telling jurors the case had been ‘extremely stressful and traumatic’.

The convictions raise questions about the past involvement of the family court and social services in Sara’s case.

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

She said: ‘Sara’s death must also bring about an immediate shift in how we protect children like her.’

Sara’s dad, stepmum Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, all fled the country within hours of her death on August 8 last year, paying thousands for a flight to Islamabad.

The schoolgirl’s body was found in a bunkbed at their home two days later alongside a note from Sharif saying he ‘killed [his] daughter by beating’.

Bill Emlyn Jones KC, prosecuting, said: ‘Poor Sara Sharif was brutally mistreated, abused and violently assaulted over a long period. It had been going on for years.

‘For the last eight months of her life when the level of violence grew to the point it ultimately cost her her life there were three adults living in the house with her.

‘None of them even reported Sara’s abuse or agony or suffering to any outside agency who could have intervened. No injury was reported to or shown to a doctor or staff at school. No outside help was called.

‘And it is worse than that because there were positive steps taken to cover the abuse up throughout those months.

‘None of the defendants did anything to stop what was happening to Sara as surely as they would have done if they had not been complicit in its happening.’

Sharif and Batool were both found guilty of murder. Malik was found guilty of causing or allowing Sara’s death.

In his call to police while on the run, Sharif told the operator: ‘I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died. She was naughty. I beat her up. It wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up.’

Mr Emlyn Jones told jurors Sharif’s description in that call ‘came nowhere near to describing the extent of the violence and physical abuse Sara had suffered’.

Sara had multiple unexplained fractures in 25 locations on her body which were most likely caused by ‘multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks’.

They included her right collar bone, both shoulder blades, both arms and hands, two of her ribs and 10 to the vertebrae.

‘Her bones were broken again and again, some perhaps from a twisting-type force but most by significant blunt force trauma – some of them with so much force that you might expect in cases of a child falling from a 20ft roof,’ the prosecutor said.

‘You might expect to see one single spinal process fracture. Sara’s spine had been broken in 10 places.’

A pathologist found head injuries caused by impacts to the head which would have left Sara severely unwell and close to death over several days before she succumbed.

There were several extremely rare fractures to the hyoid bone in Sara’s throat suggesting she had been repeatedly strangled for a period of six weeks before her death.

Abrasions to her left arm and inner thigh were deemed to be ‘probable human bite marks’, the jury heard.

Sara also had ‘horrible and extremely painful’ wounds to her buttocks and ankles consistent with burning and scalding injuries.

Jurors heard those injuries failed to heal properly and Mr Emlyn Jones painted a horrific image in explaining why – they likely became infected when Sara was restrained with her feet tucked beneath her bottom while wearing a soiled nappy.

The court heard Sara’s abuse followed a similar pattern – Batool would get angry at Sara for ‘misbehaving’ or doing something ‘naughty’ and then call Sharif home to ‘sort her out’.

‘Beinash Batool of course knows only too well exactly what that will involve because it’s been happening for years,’ Mr Emlyn Jones told jurors.

‘What it means is that Urfan Sharif will come home and beat Sara up. And yet Beinash Batool makes the call. She still makes the call.’

Jurors saw messages from Batool to her sister dating back as far as 2021 – more than two years before her death – saying Sharif regularly ‘beat the crap out of Sara’ and describing her as being ‘covered in bruises, literally beaten black’.

In another sent in February 2022, she complained to another sister that her husband was ‘beating Sara up’ before adding if ‘something happens to Sara I will not be able to forgive myself’.

But she never reported what was going on or sought help for Sara.

By January 2023, Sara began wearing a hijab to school to cover up her bruises.

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.

Urfan Sharif admitted beating his daughter to death while giving evidence halfway through the trial – but stopped short of pleading guilty to murder.

He told jurors Batool called him home saying Sara was seriously unwell. But he said he ‘whacked’ her in the abdomen with a metal pole as she lay in his wife’s arms because he thought she was being dramatic and pretending to be ill.

Sharif spent six days in the witness box denying any involvement in his daughter’s killing before dramatically telling jurors he accepted ‘full responsibility’ for Sara’s death.

But he still bizarrely tried to deny intending to cause ‘really serious harm’ – making him guilty of murder – when he assaulted her.

Batool’s barrister Caroline Carberry KC spoke for everyone watching in Court Number 5 when she asked him: ‘What did you intend to do when you took a cricket bat to the body of a 10-year-old girl?’

Mr Emlyn Jones insisted Sara’s grim fate could not be attributed to Sharif alone.

He pointed to the restraints, saying Batool was the one who ordered the rolls of packing tape used to bind and hood Sara before she was beaten with the cricket bat and metal pole.

It would also take more than one person to ensure she remained restrained because it continued even when Sharif left the house, he added.

The same went for the burns Sara suffered, the prosecutor added. The patterns of those injuries suggested the schoolgirl had not moved away from the searing pain, meaning she must have been held down by one person while another inflicted them.

And while Sharif and Malik, who moved in to stay with his brother’s family in December 2022, gave their dental impressions to prove they had not been the ones who bit Sara, Batool had not.

‘The campaign of violence was well established before Faisal Malik arrived, and by the time he moved in that violence to Sara was entrenched and it carried on,’ Mr Emlyn Jones said.

After the verdicts, Chief Superintendent Mark Chapman said: ‘Surrey Police’s 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 thought 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.

Ch Supt Chapman said: ‘Surrey Police worked tirelessly on this case in the early days with our partner agencies in this country and overseas.

‘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.’

Libby Clark, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Sara was a happy, outgoing and lively child described as always laughing, who was cruelly abused and murdered by those closest to her.

‘None of us can imagine how appalling and brutal Sara’s treatment was in the last few weeks of her short life. The injuries inflicted on her were absolutely horrendous.

‘We were able to build a strong case, showing where each defendant was in the weeks running up to Sara’s death using mobile phone evidence, CCTV sightings and work records.

‘In a small house with such a big family, it would have been immediately obvious to all the adults what was happening to Sara. Yet none of them took any action to stop it or report it. They all played their part in the violence that led to her tragic death.

‘We have today secured justice for Sara, a bubbly young girl, who was killed by the adults who should have protected her.’

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