"I legally punished her, and she died."
Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother were found guilty of murdering the 10-year-old before fleeing to Pakistan.
The Old Bailey heard the schoolgirl was hooded, tied up, beaten with a cricket bat, burnt with an iron and bitten in a “brutal” campaign of abuse in the weeks before her death on August 8, 2023.
Sara’s body was found two days later in a bed at her home in Woking, Surrey, after Urfan Sharif called police from Pakistan, where he had fled with the rest of his family.
During the call, he admitted “I’ve killed my daughter” and said “I beat her up too much” because “she was naughty”, adding:
“I legally punished her, and she died.”
Under Sara’s pillow, police found a three-page note in which Sharif had written “Love You Sara” and “I killed my daughter by beating”.
It read: “I am running away because I am scared but I promise that I will hand over myself and take punishment.
“I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her but I lost it.”
Sharif, his wife Beinash Batool and his brother Faisal Malik, along with five children, were seen on CCTV at Heathrow Airport, where they boarded a flight to Islamabad the day after Sara’s death.
Whilst in hiding, Sharif and Batool gave a video statement in which they said they were “willing to cooperate with the UK authorities and fight our case in court”.
Sharif, Batool and Malik were arrested when they returned to Gatwick Airport on September 13, 2023.
The trio pleaded not guilty to her murder and an alternative count of causing or allowing the death of a child.
During the trial, it was heard that Sara Sharif suffered more than 70 injuries.
Sharif initially blamed the abuse on his “evil and psycho” wife.
But her barrister Caroline Carberry KC suggested she was “vulnerable” and a victim of “honour-based abuse”, forcing a surprise confession from Sharif in the witness box as he admitted killing his daughter by beating.
He said he beat Sara with a cricket bat as she was bound with packing tape, throttled her with his bare hands, hit her over the head with a mobile phone, and even whacked her with a metal pole as she lay dying.
Sharif said:
“I can take full responsibility. I accept every single thing.”
He asked for the murder charge to be put to him again. But after a break, Sharif insisted he was not guilty of the charge, saying:
“I didn’t want to hurt her.”
Sharif and Batool have now been found guilty of Sara’s murder.
Malik was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child.
Surrey Police Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Chapman said an inquest and a safeguarding review would now examine whether Sara Sharif was failed by the police, social services, the courts or the education system in the years and months leading up to her death.
Describing the case as the most “shocking” in his almost 30-year career, he said he hadn’t seen another “where the treatment of a child leading to the horrific injuries that Sara suffered, the levels of neglect that were perpetrated upon her… reached these heights”.
He added: “It’s those details which have driven my team on day in, day out to ensure that they secure justice for Sara.”
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