Sara Sharif's horror injuries after 'sadist' dad and stepmum tortured her behind closed doors

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Sara Sharif was subjected to a horrific campaign of torture and abuse behind the doors of her family home, ultimately resulting in her death at just 10 years old.

Her father, Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, have been sentenced at the Old Bailey. Sharif and Batool, who murdered the little girl, have both been jailed for life. Her dad was told he will serve a minimum of 40 years behind bars before he is eligible for parole and her stepmum was given a minimum term of 33 years. Malik, who lived with them, was convicted of causing or allowing her death and will serve at least 16 years, the Mirror reports.

Mr Justice Cavanagh said Sara was treated "as if she was worthless" and that neither her father nor stepmother had "any concern for her happiness" as he handed down sentencing today (December 17). The judge asserted that Sara had been "singled out" for abuse among her siblings because she was a girl and not Batool’s "natural child". He stated: "Sara was treated as a skivvy from the family, from the age of six or seven she was made to do the washing up and tidy the house."

Police discovered Sara's lifeless body on August 10, 2023, following a frantic phone call from her father Urfan Sharif, who sobbed as he told the operator: "I've killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died." During the eight-and-a-half-minute phone call, Sharif, who later claimed to have made a false confession, wept as he insisted: "I beat her up, it wasn't my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much."

However, court reports later revealed the true extent of the family's punishment of the 10-year-old, which included being hooded, bitten, burned with an iron, and beaten so badly that she suffered 25 broken bones in injuries akin to being "kicked by a horse", over the course of two years.

All three adults were arrested after returning to the UK in September 2023 after they fled to Pakistan with five other children aged between one and 13 years old. Here, we look at the awful litany of injuries little Sara was subjected to during her short life, which her evil family sought to conceal by taking her out of school.

Tied up and bitten

Doctors who examined Sara's body concluded that Sara had been tied up and restrained “perhaps for lengthy periods” and had sustained an “awful constellation of injuries”. Sara was found to have 10 fractures to her spine, as well as breaks to her right collarbone, two ribs, both shoulder blades, both arms and hands and three fingers, jurors heard.

Five bite marks on Sara's left arm, as well as one on her inner thigh, were discovered by medics. Tests discovered these marks were not made by the two male defendants, while step-mum Batool refused to provide a dental impression for 'comparison purposes'.

Burned with a blazing iron

During the post-mortem, a 6cm by 5cm burn mark from an iron was also discovered on Sara’s buttocks. Commenting on this mark, Emlyn Jones KC said: "It appears to have been caused by the sole plate of a domestic iron, applied with pressure. It would, of course, have been extremely painful. It had not been treated."

Mr Jones told the court: "Sara had not just been beaten up. Her treatment, certainly in the last few weeks of her life, had been appalling. It had been brutal. And throughout, these three defendants were the adults living in the house where Sara had lived, where she had suffered, and where she had died."

Injuries comparable to being 'kicked by a horse'

Professor Owen Arthurs, consultant paediatric radiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said Sara’s injuries were so severe they were comparable to having been “kicked by a horse”, when he spoke before the court back in October.

Professor Arthurs told the Old Bailey: "Spinal fractures (in children) are very rare, even in specialist trauma centres, and they are usually caused by high impact, high trauma incidents, such as road traffic accidents, falls from height or being kicked by a horse."

According to Professor Arthurs, Sara’s many injuries, including the spinal fractures, were sustained over a period of several weeks. The shoulder blade fractures, which Professor Arthurs noted were “unusual”, had been caused by "blunt force trauma”.

"Many fractures can occur accidentally, and many fractures can occur from a single event. But my opinion was that they were very unusual, and they cannot be explained by accidental mechanisms, nor can they be explained by any single high-impact trauma event. My opinion for the most likely explanation for the constellation of the injuries are multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks."

Strangulation

Professor Arthurs added: "Scapular fractures are very rare in children. It is quite difficult to fracture your scapular in a sporting injury or anything like that. These are almost certainly caused by direct blunt-force trauma to the body. I can't think of an accidental way whereby you would fracture both scapulars at the same time.

"I haven't ever seen a hyoid fracture in a child, even in those when we have a history of ligature strangulation,' Professor Arthurs said. "Presence of a hyoid fracture suggests severe neck compression. The most likely cause here is manual strangulation."

Some of the injuries were fresh and just ten days old when Sara was found dead. Sara suffered fractures all over her body in 25 areas and one “extremely rare” neck injury not seen before by a radiologist on a child.

Professor Arthurs confirmed a number of timelines regarding Sara's fractures, including a trapezium bone fracture in the right hand that was less than ten days old and the fractures to her shoulder blades, which were up to six weeks old. One of Sara’s vertebrae had begun to heal after a fracture but had been broken again, while her ten spinal fractures were less than four weeks old.

Osteoarticular pathologist Professor Anthony Freemont also told the court that Sara's hyoid bone fracture occurred three months before her death, while the fractures in her left hand had been caused around two weeks before.

Sharif last month admitted to being responsible for Sara's death. He said that he had beaten her repeatedly with a cricket bat, metal pole and mobile phone and throttled her with his hands. However, he denied inflicting the bite marks and burns or using a homemade hood to punish her.

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