The case highlighted failures by social services and prompted proposed legislative changes to protect children.
A UK court on Tuesday handed life sentences to the father and stepmother of a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl who died after being subjected to a prolonged “campaign of torture” and “despicable abuse”.
Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, will serve at least 40 and 33 years respectively forthe killing of Sara Sharif, who had suffered years of horrific violence since the age of 6.
London’s Old Bailey court heard her body was found covered in bites and bruises with broken bones and burns inflicted by an electric iron and boiling water.
Passing sentence, Judge John Cavanagh said Sara had been subjected to “acts of extreme cruelty” but that Sharif and Batool had not shown “a shred of remorse”.
They had treated Sara as “worthless” and as “a skivvy”, because she was a girl. And because she was not Batool’s natural child, the stepmother had failed to protect her, he said.
“The stress, pain and trauma that this campaign of violence will have caused to Sara is hard to contemplate,” he told them, his voice shaking at times.
“This poor child was battered with great force again and again.”
Sara had been beaten with a metal pole and cricket bat and “trussed up” with a “grotesque combination of parcel tape, a rope and a plastic bag” over her head.
A hole was cut in the bag so she could breathe and she was left to soil herself in nappies as she was prevented from using the bathroom.
Sara was found dead in her bed in August 2023 at her empty family home. A post-mortem examination revealed she had 71 fresh injuries and at least 25 broken bones.
Urfan Sharif, 42, Beinash Batool, 30, and Faisal Malik were sentenced at London's Old Bailey court for the murder of schoolgirl Sara Sharif. Photo / AFP
Cavanagh described Sara as a “beautiful little girl full of personality” who had been “feisty” and loved to sing and dance.
The day she died, Sharif hit Sara twice in the stomach with the metal leg of a highchair as she lay unconscious on her stepmother’s lap.
Sharif and Batool were found guilty last week after a 10-week trial.
Her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death. He was jailed for 16 years.
Sara’s birth mother, Olga, said in a statement to the court that her daughter is “now an angel who looks down on us from heaven”.
“To this day I can’t understand how someone can be such a sadist to a child,” she added.
Police called the case “one of the most difficult and distressing” that they had ever had to deal with.
The day after Sara died, the three adults fled their home in Woking, southwest of London, and flew to Pakistan with five other children.
Her father, a taxi driver, phoned the police from Islamabad to report Sara’s death, having left behind a handwritten note saying he had not meant to kill his daughter.
After a month on the run, the three returned to the UK and were arrested on the plane after landing. The five other children remain in Pakistan.
There has been anger in the UK that Sara’s brutal treatment was missed by social services after her father withdrew her from school four months before she died.
Sharif and his first wife, Olga, were well known to social services.
In 2019, a judge decided to award the care of Sara and an older brother to Sharif, despite his history of abuse.
Her teacher told the court how she later arrived in class wearing a hijab, which she used to try to cover marks on her body which she refused to explain.
Around March 2023, after seeing injuries on her face, Sara’s school referred the case to child services, who probed the incident but did not take any action.
In April 2023, Sharif told the school that from then on Sara would be home-schooled.
Addressing Sharif, the judge said his treatment of his daughter was “nothing short of gruesome” and that it was “hard to imagine” the terror she must have felt.
“You fully intended to hurt her and to hurt her badly ... You intended that she would have a life filled with pain and misery,” he said.
The case is the latest in a string of child cruelty cases that have triggered public revulsion alongside repeated pledges from authorities to prevent further tragedies.
Under the Government’s proposed Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, introduced in Parliament Tuesday, parents will lose the automatic right to take their children out of school if authorities suspect the child is at risk.
