A child, treated “as if she were worth nothing”, with an “almost inconceivable degree of cruelty”. Those responsible are none other than his father and his stepmother. Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, were sentenced to life in prison this Tuesday, December 17 in London, for beating Sara Sharif, an Anglo-Pakistani girl, to death in August 2023, after years of abuse.
Since October 14, the little girl’s father, stepmother and uncle have been on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of the little girl on August 8, 2023, after years of unbearable horror. The next day, the couple bought plane tickets to Pakistan and flew with their five other children, leaving the girl’s body on a bed.
“I didn’t want to kill her but I beat her too much”
During the trial, the forensic doctor indicated that the body of the 10-year-old child contained 25 fractures, more or less old, which a pathologist could only explain by violent and repeated blows. Even the neck bone had been broken, probably by “manual strangulation”, according to this expert, Anthony Freemont.
Sara also had 70 marks of assault and battery. Traces of his blood were found on a baseball bat and a rolling pin. Her father’s and uncle’s DNA were also detected on a belt, and Sara’s blood and hair were found on hoods made from plastic bags that were apparently taped to her head. The autopsy also revealed burn marks, including one from an iron, and human bite marks.
On August 10, the day after her flight, Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, contacted the English authorities from Pakistan to explain that he had “legally punished (his) daughter” who “was not wise”. “I beat her, I didn’t want to kill her but I beat her too much,” he added, giving his address in Woking.
The police, who went there, discovered the child’s body on a bunk bed covered with a sheet, with a handwritten note from the father who blamed himself for his death. After a month on the run, the trio returned to the UK and were arrested on the plane. The five children are still in Pakistan.
Girl’s uncle sentenced to 16 years in prison
This trial shocked the United Kingdom, both because of the violence inflicted on the 10-year-old child and because of the missed opportunities that could have saved her. “It is no exaggeration to describe it as torture,” said the judge at the Old Bailey court in London. For more than an hour, he explained his decision, detailing the “vile” acts endured by the little girl.
His father, Urfan Sharif, cannot be released until he has served 40 years in prison. Her mother-in-law Beinash Batool will have to remain in detention for at least 33 years. His uncle Faisal Malik, 29, who had lived with the couple in Woking (south-west London) for eight months, was found guilty of “causing or making possible his death”. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Unusually, the verdict was broadcast live on television.
The judge condemned the “almost inconceivable degree of cruelty” of the defendants, who “failed to show true remorse”. Sara was treated “like she was worthless.” More than the other children in the house, she suffered this violence “because she was a girl”, born to another mother. She must have been “in a permanent state of terror”.
“An angel watching us from heaven”
During the trial, Urfan Sharif, a taxi driver, first accused his wife, then admitted responsibility, while claiming that he did not want to kill Sara.
Sara’s teacher told the trial of a little girl who arrived in class wearing a hijab in January 2023, the only one in her family to wear one, and who pulled on it to hide marks. Noticing traces of blows, the school issued three reports, without result. By April 2023, the family had moved and Urfan Sharif announced to the school that Sara would now be homeschooled.
At the trial, he admitted to having strangled his daughter several times with his bare hands, to having hit her with a cricket bat while she was tied up, or even to the leg of a high chair.
Social services knew Urfan Sharif and Olga, Sara’s Polish mother whom he had met online, even before the little girl was born. Sara and her older brother had been placed in a foster home several times, then returned to their mother once separated from Sharif, before a judge decided to entrust Sara and her brother to their father in 2019, despite his violent nature.
Sara, buried in Poland, is “now an angel watching us from heaven,” her mother wrote in a letter read by the prosecutor before the verdict.
