Sara Sharif's father, uncle and stepmum guilty of torturing 10-year-old to death and fleeing country

Sara Sharif’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, have been found guilty at the Old Bailey of the 10-year-old’s murder

The father, uncle and stepmother of Sara Sharif have today been found guilty after the 10-year-old was tortured to death before they all fled the UK to Pakistan.

Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, face life sentencing after being found guilty at the Old Bailey. Her uncle and her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death.

The father and stepmother of schoolgirl Sara Sharif are facing life sentences after they were convicted of torturing the ten-year-old schoolgirl to death. Minicab driver Urfan Sharif, 42, fled the country with his family on August 10 last year, leaving behind the body of Sara.

She was found dead on a bed in her home in Woking on 10 August 2023 after being regularly beaten with a cricket bat and metal pole. Sara was found in the bedroom where they had left her, bearing the scars and bruises of at least 71 external injuries.

She had ten spinal fractures and further fractures to her right collar bone, both shoulder blades, both arms, both hands, three separate fingers, bones near the wrist in each hand, two ribs and her hyoid bone in the neck.

Plastic bags bound with packaging tape were used to hood Sara and she was forced to wear a nappy as she could not use the toilet when she was tied up.

She had been burned on her buttocks with an iron and had six bite marks on her body. Sharif, who routinely beat his daughter while her wrists and ankles were tied with packaging tape, was convicted of her murder.

Stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, who left six bite marks on Sara’s body, also denied but was convicted of murder.

The couple carried out a "campaign of abuse" to "discipline" Sara and became furious with the schoolgirl when she threw up or soiled herself because of the torture they themselves were inflicting.

She was regularly tied up with brown packaging tape and forced to wear hoods made from carrier bags.

If she was "naughty" Batool would call Urfan home to beat her with a variety of weapons.

She was burned on the buttocks with an iron and forced to wear a nappy instead of going to the toilet when she was trussed up.

Nine people were living in the two-bedroomed house and the family were referred to social services when teachers noticed bruises on Sara's face.

Sara had been fostered as a baby amid abuse allegations but social workers ignored the concerns of the last teachers to see their pupil alive.

The schoolgirl died in agony when her sadistic family could no longer cover up her bruises with a hijab and kept her away from neighbours and teachers for "home schooling."

Surrey Social Services have now launched a major review into the case to understand how they completely failed the murdered schoolgirl.

Urfan originally denied abusing his daughter but dramatically changed his story during the trial and admitted responsibility on his sixth day of evidence, telling the jury "I want to admit it, that it is all my fault."

But in a bizarre attempt to dodge some responsibility, he said he had not intended to harm his daughter when he thrashed her with a cricket bat as she lay tied up and helpless.

Sara’s uncle McDonald’s worker, Faisal Malik, 29, who moved in with the family in December 2022 was convicted/cleared of murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The day after Sara’s death Urfan, Batool, Malik fled to go and stay with Urfan’s family in Pakistan.

Urfan left a note with Sara’s body which said: "I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it."

Batool was completely unemotional as she was recorded booking the flights to Pakistan.

It was only when they arrived that Urfan made a 999 call telling the operator: "I’ve killed my daughter. I’ve legally punished her and she died."

He added: "She was naughty. I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her but I beat her up too much."

Sharif and Malik provided dental samples to the police to prove they did not leave the bite marks but Batool refused to do so.

He admitted to beating Sara as far back as 2021.

He came to the UK on a student visa in 2003 and dated three Polish women in an effort to find a wife to get an EU passport so he could remain in the UK.

All three went to the police to accuse him of domestic abuse, saying they had been assaulted by him and held against their will.

He married the third woman, Sara’s mother Olga. He met Batool in 2015 and split from his first wife around the same time.

While married to Olga around 2011, Sharif went to Pakistan and had an Islamic marriage to his first cousin but he insisted the marriage was never consummated.

Various relatives were crammed into his house, and neighbours often heard the distressed screams of a child coming from the address.

One said she had never seen Sara smile on the occasions she was allowed out of the house.

Despite her Muslim background, Sara had attended St Mary's Church of England school in Byfleet where teachers had noticed bruises on her.

The referrals were made to social services after Sara gave different stories about the injuries, but tragically nothing was done.

Sara had never worn a hijab but in the last eight months of her life Sharif and Batool began making her wear one to hide the bruises they were causing.

In April 2023 her injuries forced them to take her out of school entirely and she was not monitored in the final desperate months of her life.

At home she was treated as a "skivvy" and made to do all the family’s laundry and take out the rubbish in between beatings and abuse.

Batool was regularly heard screaming and swearing at her by neighbours as she was locking her into a bedroom.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones, KC, earlier told the jury: "Poor Sara Sharif was brutally mistreated, abused and violently assaulted over a long period. It had been going on for years.

"Those beatings were intended you may think to punish, to impose discipline, no doubt to vent their furious anger at a little girl.

"Sara was killed as a result of serial and serious violence."

The family returned to the UK a month after the body was found and were arrested at Gatwick airport after flying in on business class.

Sharif spent his first six days of evidence denying abusing Sara and blaming his ‘psycho wife’ for causing her injuries.

He pointed at his wife and called her an 'animal' for abusing and biting his daughter.

But on his seventh day in the witness box Sharif dramatically told the court he had something to say before admitting responsibility for Sara’s death.

Jurors wept as Urfan confessed to beating her repeatedly with the cricket bat and metal pole when she was tied up.

He said he returned home to find her dying in Batool’s arms and admitted to giving her "a couple of wacks" with a metal pole.

Sharif tearfully confessed to causing her death and intending to cause her really serious harm - but then changed his mind after he was advised he had pleaded guilty to murder.

He later claimed he had not intended his daughter any harm when he beat her repeatedly with a cricket bat.

Sharif told the court "I am cruel" but could offer no explanations for the horrendous beatings he meted out to a defenceless ten year old girl.

He said: "She was my daughter, I’ve been nasty, I’ve been mean with her, I couldn’t care for her.

"I didn’t do what a father should have done and I take full responsibility for every single thing that happened to my daughter."

Sharif insisted he was not responsible for biting or burning Sara and suggested other children might have been responsible for burning her with an iron.

He told how Batool would call him when Sara was "naughty" and he would beat her with the metal pole.

But after spending six days calling his wife a "psycho", he suddenly decided she was not responsible after all and was 'a good mother.'

He accepted in court that the jury could not believe a word he said.

Batool had been messaging her two sisters for years telling them that Urfan was "beating the c—p" out of Sara but neither called the police, advising her to calm down and read the Quran.

In one message she said "she’s covered in bruises literally beaten black."

Urfan and Batool denied but were convicted of murder.

Malik denied and was cleared/convicted of murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.

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