A schoolgirl has been remembered as “bubbly and confident” while three of her family members are standing trial for her murder.
Sara Sharif, 10, was found dead in a bunkbed at her family home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10, 2023. Police raced to her home after they received a frantic call from Pakistan from her dad.
Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of his daughter’s murder alongside Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29. The jury has heard devastating details about the child’s final weeks as the trial is ongoing.
During the phone call to police, Sharif wept as he told the operator: “I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her, and she died.” In the eight-and-a-half-minute phone call to emergency services, the dad, who has since claimed to have made a false confession, sobbed as he insisted: “I beat her up, it wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
During the time of call, Sharif, Batool and Malik had already fled to Pakistan alongside five children aged between one and 13 years old. Sara’s lifeless body was left behind.
Terrible discovery
Officers made a devastating discovery at the property in August last year. William Emlyn Jones, prosecuting, told the court: “In an upstairs bedroom, on a bottom bunk bed, the police found the body of a little girl, lying in bed, under the cover, as if asleep. But she was not asleep. She was dead. Next to her body was a note in Urfan Sharif’s handwriting. It echoed what he had said in that 999 call.”
This note read: “It’s me Urfan Sharif who killed my daughter by beating. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it. I am running away because I am scared.”
Mr Emlyn Jones informed jurors that evidence showed that Sara had died on August 8, 2023. Fleeing family members, including Sharif, landed in Pakistan on August 10. All three were arrested after returning to UK soil in September 2023.
‘Gut-wrenching’ screams
Sara’s former reported how she heard a child’s screams followed by ‘deathly quiet’. Rebecca Spencer had heard these sounds ‘from the moment’ the Sharif family moved into the Eden Grove flat in West Byfleet in around 2018 to 2019, Mr Emlyn Jones KC told jurors.
The prosecutor explained that Rebecca had thought the ‘banging and rattling’ noises sounded like ‘someone was banging on and pushing at a door’. In her statement, read by Mr Emlyn Jones, Rebecca claimed: “On the occasions I would hear these banging and rattling sounds, they would often be accompanied by the sounds of a child crying or a screaming, followed by complete silence.
“On those occasions, I can only describe the silence as ‘deathly quiet’ and I cannot even imagine what had happened to make the crying or screaming child become immediately silent.”
Chloe Redwin, another neighbour whose statement was read out in court by Mr Emlyn Jones, recalled how she’d heard ‘shockingly loud’ smacking sounds followed by ‘gut-wrenching screams’ from inside the Sharif family home. Chloe Redwin, who moved into the neighbouring property in September 2020, stated that she’d heard screams followed by a woman shouting ‘shut the f*** up’ and ‘go to your room you f****** b******’.
According to Chloe, shouting and screaming could be heard at ‘any time of the day or night’, however, she did notice that it didn’t happen when the ‘father of the household” was at home’. Chloe said that she would ‘often’ say hello to Sharif, adding that she’d thought he was ‘conscious of the noise his family made, because on occasions he would apologise for it’. Both Chloe and Rebecca remarked that Sara was always well-dressed and that they’d never seen her with any signs of injuries.
‘Constellation of injuries’
According to doctors who examined Sara’s body, the child suffered injuries over a ‘sustained and extended’ period of time. It was asserted that Sara had suffered an ‘awful constellation of injuries’ that would suggest the child had been tied up and restrained ‘perhaps for lengthy periods’. The girl was found with 10 fractures to her spine and breaks to her right collarbone, two ribs, both shoulder blades, both arms and hands and three fingers.
What appeared as five bite marks were also found on Sara’s left arm, as well as one on her inner thigh. Tests showed these marks were not made by the two male defendants, while Batool refused to provide a dental impression for ‘comparison purposes’, the court heard.
The post-mortem also uncovered a 6cm by 5cm burn mark from an iron was discovered on her buttocks. Discussing 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.”
According to Mr Emlyn Jones, an examination of Sara’s body showed that Sharif’s claim to have beaten her up came ‘nowhere near to describing the extent of the violence and physical abuse Sara had suffered’ over a number of weeks.
Mr Emlyn Jones said: “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.”
The prosecutor told the jury that the three defendants had all ‘played their part’ in the violence, stating that it was ‘inconceivable’ that just one of them had acted alone. Mr Emlyn Jones told jurors: “Ask yourselves, how could just one person have carried out so much abuse, so many assaults, without the others knowing about it and witnessing it with their own eyes? If any one of them was not a part of it, but had seen it, why then was nothing done to stop it, or report it?”
He continued: “Each of them denies that they were the one responsible for any of that violence and abuse. Each of them seeks to deflect the blame onto one or both of the others, to shift responsibility away from themselves, onto someone else. In other words, they are pointing the finger at each other.”
Jurors heard how Sharif had claimed that his wife, Batool, had been responsible for Sara’s death and that he’d made a false confession to protect her. Batool in turn accused Sharif of being a violent disciplinarian that she lived in fear of. Malik has denied being responsible for his death, and he has further claimed that unaware of what was going on.
‘Dearly missed’ schoolgirl
Sara had been in Year 5 at St Mary’s C of E primary school in Byfleet, where headteacher Jacquie Chambers says she’ll be ‘dearly missed’ by pupils and teachers alike. Paying tribute last year to Sara in a statement reported by the BBC, Ms Chambers said: “She [Sara] was a bubbly, confident little girl who had the most beautiful smile. She was full of ideas and was very passionate about the things she believed in.”
She added: “Sara will be dearly missed and, as a school community, we are all deeply affected by this tragedy. Our thoughts, prayers and sympathy are with those affected by this heartbreaking news.”
The trial continues.
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