A British court will (today) sentence the father and stepmother of Sarah Sharif, a British Pakistani girl who died of prolonged and horrific abuse in a case that has shocked Britain.
Sara’s 43-year-old father Irfan Sharif and 30-year-old stepmother Benish Batul could be sentenced to life in prison for the murder after they were found guilty last week, a British news agency reported. Weekly trial at the Old Bailey in London.
Sarah was just 10 years old when she was found dead in her bed in August 2023, her body covered in cuts and bruises, broken bones and burn marks.
An autopsy revealed that he had more than 100 injuries and at least 25 broken bones.
Her father Irfan admitted to beating her with a cricket bat, as she was bound with packing tape weeks before her death. He also strangled her with his bare hands and broke her collarbone.
Her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death.
The day after Sarah’s death, the three adults fled their home in Woking, south-west London, and flew to Pakistan with five other children.
Her father, a taxi driver, called the police on the way to the airport to report Sarah’s death, leaving a handwritten note saying he had not meant to kill his daughter. But I lost it.”
‘terrible’
After a month on the run, the trio returned to Britain and were arrested after disembarking. The remaining five children are in Pakistan.
There has been outrage in Britain that Sarah’s brutal treatment left her deprived of social services after her father pulled her out of school four months before she died.
Her teacher told the court how she had arrived at class wearing a hijab, which she refused to explain, in an attempt to hide the marks on her body.
The jury was told that Sharif had won custody of Sarah in 2019 after separating from his first wife despite allegations of abuse by his ex-wife. Sarah was in and out of foster care.
Around March 2023, after noticing bruises on her face, Sarah’s school referred the case to Child Services, who investigated the incident but took no action.
The family moved home in April 2023, and Irfan told the school that Sara would be homeschooled from then on.
After the sentencing, Libby Clarke, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “None of us can imagine the horrific and cruel treatment Sarah suffered in the last few weeks of her short life. “
‘failed’
Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel D’Souza said: “There is no doubt that Sarah was failed in the strictest terms by the safety net of services around her.”
“Even before she was born, she was known to social care – and yet she fell off their radar so completely that she was invisible to them until she died.”
Sharif and his first wife, Olga, a Polish woman who was Sarah’s birth mother, were known for their social service even before her birth.
She and the two older children were placed in care after the abuse, before being returned to their mother when the couple split.
In 2019, a judge decided to award custody of Sarah and an older brother to Irrfan, despite his history of abuse.
On the day she died, Irfan stabbed Sara twice in the stomach with the metal leg of a high chair as she lay unconscious in her stepmother’s lap, accusing the child of acting out.
Benish and Faisal did not address the trial, and expressed no remorse for their actions.
Her case is the latest in a series of child abuse cases that have sparked public outrage, along with repeated promises by authorities to “learn lessons” and prevent further tragedies.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed after Wednesday’s decision that protections for home-schooled children would be promoted.