The father and stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif were sentenced to life in prison after they were found guilty in her death. Photo courtesy of Surrey Police
The father and stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif were sentenced to life in prison in Britain on Tuesday after they were found guilty of her murder.
Sara’s father, 43-year-old Urfan Sharif must serve at least 40 years of his life sentence, while his wife, Beinash Batool, 30, is required to serve a minimum term of 33 years. Advertisement
Urfan’s brother, 29-year-old Faisal Malik was found not guilty of murder, but received a 16-year sentence for allowing the death of a child.
They were found guilty last week in connection with the death of Sara, who was found with “multiple and extensive injuries” on her body including burns, bruises, and human bight marks along with 25 fractures, including 11 to her spine in a post-mortem review.
Justice John Cavanagh called the girl’s abuse “torture” and condemned the three defendants for not showing “a shred of remorse,” adding it was “nothing short of gruesome. Advertisement
The girl’s mother, Olga Domin, joined a court hearing remotely as her ex-husband got sentenced to prison for life for killing their daughter.
“Sara was always smiling. She had her own unique character,” Domin said Tuesday in her impact statement virtually from her home in Poland. “The only thing I had left to give to my daughter was to give her a beautiful Catholic funeral that she deserves.”
“She is now an angel who looks down on us from heaven, she is no longer experiencing violence,” Domin added. “To this day, I can’t understand how someone can be such a sadist to a child.”
Prosecutor Emyln Jones stated the case “bristles with aggravating features” along with the fact the girl suffered an “unimaginable level of pain” at the hands of her father, uncle and stepmother.
She was found dead at the family home in Surrey in a bunk bed on Aug. 10, 2023, after the three fled to Pakistan two days earlier with their other children, where Sharif notified police. Officials later discovered a handwritten “confession” note near her fully clothed body.
Sharif wrote that he beat his daughter “too much” for being “naughty,” adding how he “lost it.”
“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her,” he said in part. Advertisement
Jones said the case involved a “gross breach of trust” because the deceased was the defendant’s own small child.
“In their care, she suffered this violence in her own home where she ought to have been entitled to feel safe and loved and cared for,” the prosecution told the British court.
Her death sparked nationwide conversations in Britain about the proper protection and care of children with child protection advocates calling for “substantial” reform.
Sara was withdrawn from school in April 2023 after teachers alerted child protective services about bruises on the 10-year-old’s face.
The Surrey County Council, the authority responsible for the area of southern England where Sara was killed in Woking, previously announced an independent statutory investigation into what went wrong in Sara’s case looking at all professionals who had contact with the Sharif family.
Permission to remove children from class for homeschooling should never be granted where abuse concerns have been flagged, England’s children’s commissioner for England said Thursday.
