A British court on Wednesday found her father Urfan Sharif, 43, her stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and Urfan’s brother, Faisal Malik, 29, guilty of the 2023 death of Sara Sharif, pictured here. File Photo courtesy Surrey Police
The relatives of 10-year-old Sara Sharif were found guilty of her murder, a British court ruled Wednesday.
A British court on Wednesday found her father Urfan Sharif, 43, the girl’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and Urfan’s brother, Faisal Malik, 29, guilty in the 2023 death of Sara Sharif. Advertisement
“I know a murder trial is always stressful and traumatic but this case almost above any other has been extremely stressful and traumatic,” Judge Justice Cavanagh said at the conviction after the eight-week trial.
Her father was characterized as a “manipulative, serial abuser of vulnerable women” and “abuser of children” for “many years as confirmed in police and social service records.” Her death sparked conversations by officials in Britain over its system that prioritizes unification with a parent over the safety of a child with Sara having been placed temporarily in child protective services at birth. Advertisement
The Crown Prosecution Service stated it was a “complex case” working with foreign authorities but has “today secured justice for Sara.”
They initially were charged in September 2023. The court deliberated for roughly two days.
A post-mortem revealed that Sara sustained 71 “multiple and extensive injuries” over her body including burns, bruises and human bite marks along with 25 fractures and 11 to her spine.
It was described to the jury in court how the young girl suffered a torturous “daily living hell” over the course of several months by her father who had been described as a “controlling, violent bully” and psychopath. As the verdict was delivered he reportedly wept and held his head in his hands.
“Her death is a heartbreaking reminder of the profound weaknesses in our child protection system that, as a country, we have failed time and time again to correct,” Britain’s children’s commissioner said Wednesday in a statement. “We have been here before — and each time we have said ‘never again.'”
Sharif, Batool and their five other children along with Sharif’s brother Faisal Malik, fled to Pakistan on Aug. 9, 2023 where Urfan then called British emergency services from Pakistan the next day to inform them about Sara which sparked an international manhunt. Advertisement
They were arrested at London’s Gatwick Airport after voluntarily flying home before police discovered Sara’s body in a bunk bed on Aug. 10 in the family home in Surrey.
He told police that he beat his daughter “too much” for being “naughty” and left a handwritten confession near where her body was discovered.
“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it,” his note read in part.
However, the ex-taxi driver allegedly lied to the jury over a period of six days and denied the brutal attacks on his daughter.
On the seventh day of the trial Sharif then told the court he took “full responsibility” for Sara’s death, and admitted to binding her with packing tape and beating her with a series of objects like a metal pole, a cricket bat or a cell phone. But he did deny biting her and putting her in a homemade hood before burning her with boiling water and an iron.
His partner, Batool, reportedly had refused to provide dental evidence and was uncooperative at trial while Sharif seemingly has an extended history of prior abuse allegations.
More disturbingly, the jury heard evidence of Sharif’s previous arrests related to allegations of assault on other children. Reports go as far back as 2007. Sharif also was arrested for the alleged abuse of three Polish women including Sara’s mother, Olga Domin. Sharif married Olga in 2009 and got arrested a year later for allegedly assaulting her, which he denied, according to the BBC. Advertisement
The jury heard how the now-convicted Sharif created a “culture of violent discipline where assaults of Sara had become completely routine, completely normalized.” Sara had been “brutally mistreated, abused and violently assaulted” for years, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones told the court.
