A British court on Tuesday jailed for life the father and stepmother of a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl who died after a prolonged “campaign of torture” and “appalling ill-treatment.”
Urfan Sharif, 43, and Benash Batool, 30, will face a minimum of 40 and 33 years respectively for the murder of Sara Sharif, who suffered years of horrific violence from the age of six.
London’s Old Bailey court heard that her body was found covered in cuts and bruises, with broken bones and burns caused by electric irons and boiling water.
Sentencing, Judge John Cavanagh said Sarah had been subjected to “acts of extreme cruelty” but that Sharif and Batool had shown “not the slightest remorse”.
He treated Sarah as “useless” and “stupid” because she was a girl. And because she was not Batool’s natural child, the stepmother had failed to protect her, he said.
“It is difficult to imagine the stress, pain and trauma that this campaign of violence must have caused Sarah,” he told them, his voice sometimes trembling.
“This poor child was beaten repeatedly and with great force.”
Sarah was beaten with a metal pole and a cricket bat and her head was “wrapped” with a “bizarre combination of parcel tape, a rope and a plastic bag”.
A hole was cut in the bag so he could breathe and he was left to soil in a nappy as he was prevented from going to the bathroom.
Sarah was found dead in her bed in her empty family home in August 2023. The post-mortem examination revealed that he had 71 fresh injuries and at least 25 broken bones.
Cavanagh described Sarah as “a beautiful little girl full of personality” who was “spirited” and loved to sing and dance.
On the day she died, Sharif hit Sara twice in the stomach with the metal leg of a high chair while she lay unconscious in her stepmother’s lap.
‘Pestist’
Sharif and Batool were found guilty last week after a 10-week trial.
Her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death. He was jailed for 16 years.
Sarah’s birth mother, Olga, said in a statement to the court that her daughter “is now an angel watching over us from heaven”.
She said, “To this day I cannot understand how someone could be so sadistic towards a child.”
Police described the case as one of the “most difficult and disturbing” they had ever faced.
The day after Sarah’s death, three adults fled their home in Woking, southwest of London, and fled to Pakistan with five other children.
Her father, a taxi-driver, called the police from Islamabad to report Sara’s death, and left a handwritten note saying he had not intended to kill his daughter.
After a month on the run, the three returned to Britain and were arrested on board the plane after landing. The remaining five children live in Pakistan.
There is anger in Britain that Sarah’s brutal treatment was ignored by social services after her father pulled her out of school four months before her death.
Sharif and his first wife Olga were known for social services.
In 2019, a judge decided to award custody of Sara and an older brother to Sharif, despite his history of abuse.
Her teacher told the court how she later arrived at class wearing a hijab, which she used to hide marks on her body, which she refused to explain.
‘Terror’
Around March 2023, after noticing injuries to her face, Sarah’s school referred the case to child services, who investigated the incident but took no action.
In April 2023, Sharif told the school that from now on Sara would be taught from home.
The judge, addressing Sharif, said that his treatment of his daughter was “nothing short of appalling” and that it was “hard to imagine” the terror he must have felt.
He said, “Your entire intention was to hurt her and to hurt her badly… Your intention was that her life be full of pain and suffering.”
The case is the latest in a series of child cruelty cases that have sparked a public outcry as well as repeated pledges by authorities to prevent further tragedies.
Under the government’s proposed Children’s Welfare and Schools Bill, introduced in Parliament on Tuesday, parents would lose the automatic right to pull their children out of school if authorities suspect a child is at risk.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
