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Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother are to be sentenced today for murder after inflicting a deadly campaign of abuse which saw the schoolgirl being hooded, restrained and beaten during her short life.
Her father Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, were found guilty of her murder last Wednesday.
Her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was also convicted of causing or allowing her death after a jury at the Old Bailey deliberated for nine hours and 46 minutes.
Sara, 10, died at the family home on 8 August last year after suffering a catalogue of 70 injuries which included a traumatic brain injury, 25 fractures, an ulcerated burn to her buttocks, human bite marks and scalding wounds.
The girl’s father had alerted Surrey Police to her death by calling its non-emergency 101 line in the early hours of 10 August 2023, after fleeing to Pakistan with Batool and Malik.
The trio are set to be sentenced on Tuesday at the Old Bailey.
Abuse ‘became normalised’ trial told
Even as she lay dying in Batool’s lap last August 8, taxi driver Sharif had come home and whacked her in the stomach for “pretending”.
Batool had told her sister that Sharif would “beat the c**p” out of his daughter but failed to do anything to stop it, even calling him home from work to dish out punishments, the court was told.
The abuse had become so “normalised” that university student Malik failed to act after moving in with the family in December 2022.
By January 2023, Sara began wearing a hijab to cover up the bruises at school.
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.
Sam Rkaina17 December 2024 08:10
Father and stepmother to be sentenced today
Sara Sharif‘s father and stepmother will be sentenced later for killing the 10-year-old after years of horrific abuse.
Last week, Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, were found guilty of her murder following a trial at the Old Bailey.
Her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, who lived with them, was convicted of causing or allowing her death after a jury deliberated for nine hours and 46 minutes.
The three defendants will return to the Old Bailey on Tuesday when Mr Justice Cavanagh’s sentencing is expected to be broadcast from the court.
Sara was found dead in a bunkbed at her home in Woking, Surrey, after her father rang police from Pakistan to confess he had beaten her “too much”.
She had suffered more than 25 broken bones, iron burns on her bottom, scalding marks to her feet, and human bites during a campaign of abuse spanning at least two years.
Sharif had hit her with a cricket bat and iron bar, throttled her, and thrown a mobile phone at her head.
Sara was also tied up with packaging tape and her head covered with a makeshift hood during regular bouts of punishment that would have left her in excruciating pain, jurors had heard.
Urfan Sharif (left) and Beinash Batool (Surrey Police/PA) (PA Media)
Sam Rkaina17 December 2024 07:48