Sara Sharif was punished because she had a ‘jinn in her’, stepmother claimed
by Henry Moore · LBCSome readers may find the following details distressing
By Henry Moore
Sara Sharif was beaten by her father because she had a “jinn in her”, her murder-accused stepmother claimed.
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A court heard that the stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif pinned the blame for her beatings on her bad behaviour.
Her dad, Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmum Beinash Batool, 29, and Urfan's brother, Faisal Malik, 28 are all standing trial charged with her murder.
Young Sara suffered over 70 injuries including “probable human bites” on her left arm and leg in the lead-up to her death.
Batool and Sharif have both pinned the blame on each other during the trial for Sara’s murder, with Malik claiming he had no involvement.
On Thursday, jurors were presented with WhatsApp messages, sent between 2020 and 2023, in which Batool told her sister of the beatings Sara suffered.
They were accompanied by pictures of a grim-faced and bruised Sara, with the message: "Look what he's doing. Delete the pictures."
During the time period, Batool often told her sister that Sharif hit Sara for her “naughty, rude and rebellious” actions, such as hiding keys and tearing up documents.
As early as February 2020, Batool described Sharif as going on a "rampage" after spilling hot tea, saying he was "possessed".
She described an "anger attack" after a visit to a play centre and incidents in which Sharif broke photo frames and curtains.
Commenting on 10 photographs of Sara, she wrote: "This is how bad he is beating her ... I feel really sorry for her. He beat the crap out of her."
At one point, Batool even claimed Sara had a “jinn” inside her, suggesting she was possessed in some way.
She told her sister: "She's got a jinn in her. She reminds me of me when I was young."
On another occasion, Batool said Sharif "went ballistic" and "beat Sara up like crazy", expressing fears that he would break her arm or leg.
In the summer of 2021, Batool texted her sister telling her she wanted to report her husband after he left Sara “covered in bruises, literally beaten black."
Afterwards, Sharif sat "on his fat bum" and played the board game Ludo, she said.
She added: "Why the hell I'm even letting him in the house. I'm sorry for Sara, poor girl cannot walk. She literally fainted in the kitchen in the morning. He made her do sit-ups all night."
Asked what Sara had done, Batool said: "Because she hid the keys."
By 2022, Batool wrote messages claiming she considered legal advice, but did not follow through after he sister told her to give it time.
Later that year, Batool said that she was considering taking Sara out of school, saying: "I don't want to but kinda don't have a choice.
"It's not hard home schooling. I'm just fed up of her behaviour and Urfan's.
"Sara's body is literally bruised because Urfan beat her up. I cannot even cover it up.
"He beat Sara up yesterday and I can't send her to school on Monday looking like that.
"She ripped Urfan's documents in front of him and was being rude and rebellious."
"She's got way too much bruises and stuff and home schooling isn't that hard."
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif suffered injuries comparable to that of a car crash victim before her death, the court was told earlier this month.
Paediatric radiologist Prof Owen Arthurs told jurors that the spinal fractures suffered by the 10-year-old were “very rare” and usually reflective of high-impact trauma like car crashes.
He told the court: "My opinion of most of the fractures in this case... were that they were very unusual and they cannot be explained by an accidental mechanism nor can they be explained as any single high impact trauma event."
“The most likely cause is manual strangulation with a degree of force, which we would mostly recognise in hanging,” he told the court.