Sara Sharif’s mother has called her daughter’s murderers “sadists and executioners” as they were jailed for life.
Olga Domin joined the Old Bailey hearing remotely as Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, were sentenced for the 10-year-old’s murder.
On Tuesday the judge, Mr Justice Cavanagh, described the campaign of abuse against Sara as “torture” and condemned the defendants for not showing “a shred of remorse”.
The prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said Sara was subjected to serious violence from at least the age of six with a variety of weapons including a cricket bat, an improvised metal truncheon made from the broken leg of a high chair and a domestic iron.
Sharif and Batool were found guilty of Sara’s murder last Wednesday after an eight-week trial at the Old Bailey. Sara’s paternal uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, who was living with the family at the time, was found not guilty of murder but was convicted of causing or allowing her death.
Cavanagh sentenced Sharif to a minimum term of 40 years and Batool to a minimum term of 33 years. Malik was jailed for 16 years. The judge’s voice shook as he described some of the injuries suffered by Sara, describing the abuse as “nothing short of gruesome”.
In a victim impact statement read out at the Old Bailey by Emlyn Jones, Domin 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.
“I hoped that when she grew up we would meet, but now that won’t happen, she left us too soon.”
Addressing the defendants in the dock, Domin, who joined the hearing from her native Poland, said: “You are sadists, although even this word is not enough for you. I would say you are executioners.”
Emyln Jones said Domin had expressed a view about the sentence the defendants should receive and referred to them as “these cowards”.
He argued that the case “bristles with aggravating features”, including the fact that Sara had suffered an “unimaginable level of pain” for a long period prior to her death.
Sara was found dead in a bunk bed at the family home in Surrey on 10 August 2023. The couple had killed her two days earlier and fled to Pakistan, from where Sharif called police to say he had beaten her up “too much” for being naughty. He had left a handwritten “confession” near her fully clothed body, saying: “I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”
Emlyn Jones said: “This is a case involving a gross breach of trust because the deceased was the defendant’s own little child. In their care, she suffered this violence in her own home where she ought to have been entitled to feel safe and loved and cared for.”
The jail terms will take into account time served on remand, with a minimum term of 38 years and 272 days for Sharif and 31 years and 272 days for Batool.