Sara Sharif’s father was accused of abuse before she was born and was ordered not to use 'physical chastisement'
12 December 2024, 09:51 | Updated: 12 December 2024, 09:54
The father of murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif was known to authorities over previous allegations of domestic and child abuse, false imprisonment and making threats to kill.
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Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, and his wife Beinash Batool, 30, were found guilty of Sara's murder yesterday.
Her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, who lived with them, was convicted of causing or allowing her death.
Sara was born in 2013, but her parents split soon afterwards, with accusations of abuse made against each other in a custody battle.
In 2019, a family court awarded custody to Sharif, who had by then divorced Sara's mother and married Batool.
The 10-year-old was found dead in a bunk bed of their family home in Woking on August 8 2023. She had been beaten to death.
Urfan Sharif came to the UK from Pakistan to study.
He married Sara's mother, Olga Domin - who was Polish and spoke little English - in Woking, in 2009.
Before she was even born, Sara's family was known to police and children's services.
Police were involved four times between 2010 and 2012 while children's services were in contact from 2010, amid concerns over one of Sara's siblings.
Surrey County Council children's services were in contact from 2010, while hearings at the family court, in Surrey, began just before Sara was born.
This was due to growing concerns of neglect and violence in the family, including against one of Sara's siblings, referred to in court as "Z".
In 2010, "Z" was found alone in a shop at the age of just three.
Later that year Sharif was arrested for assaulting Ms Domin.
During the fight he hit "Z", leaving a hand print on the child's back.
In 2011, "Z" had told teachers "daddy hit me", and the following year told them "mummy hit me".
The child was found with a burn mark and was again discovered alone in Woking Town Centre - half a mile from the family home.
Social workers recorded "unexplained injuries" to "Z" and another of Sara's siblings, referred to in court as "U".
Before Sara was born there were further allegations of assaults against the children, all were denied.
Then in 2013, "Z" was burned by an iron.
When social workers visited their home, they found no light bulbs or bedding in the children's bedrooms.
This incident meant Sara was under a care order soon after she was born at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough on January 11, 2013.
It gave the local authority legal responsibility for Sara and her two siblings, and social workers made frequent visits to the family home.
She was first taken into foster care for a short period in November 2014, when she was almost two, after "Z" complained of being bitten "very hard" by Ms Domin and "pinched and punched" by Sharif.
Foster carers noticed what looked like cigarette burns on both Sara and "U".
However, Ms Domin and Sharif had said they were chicken pox scars.
In 2015, in the middle of the care proceedings hearing, Ms Domin accused Sharif of hitting her and their children, and of controlling and violent behaviour.
These allegations were never tested in court, but Sharif agreed to go on a domestic violence course.
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False imprisonment
Surrey Police were also aware of previous allegations of violence made against Sharif.
Sharif had been arrested over allegations made by three different Polish women, including Sara's mother, between 2007 and 2010, including domestic violence, making threats to kill and false imprisonment, but he was never charged.
The jury had heard Sharif had previously been arrested in connection with allegations made by three separate women since 2004.
Sharif told the jury he was in a relationship with a Polish woman from 2004 until 2007 or 2008.
"[The woman] told police that you had held her in a bedroom against her will, that you locked the door using her key, that you shouted at her 'don’t go to your friends and I want to see you always at home', and when you were doing that you were squeezing her face," Ms Carberry told Sharif.
The court then heard how the woman alleged Sharif pointed a knife at her, took her passport, stamped on her phone and told her: "Shut your mouth or I'll kill you."
Sharif denied the allegations.
In March 2009, Mr Sharif went to Poland. He met another woman, who he had been speaking with online for the previous eight months.
The pair returned to the UK, but the woman fled the country after two weeks, claiming she was falsely imprisoned by him for five days.
Sharif denied this and also rejected claims by Ms Carberry that he sent threatening emails to the woman, stopped her from seeing her friends and withheld her passport.
The jury was told how five months after the woman returned to Poland, Sharif met a third woman from Poland, Olga, who went on to become Sara's mother.
After the initial period in foster care in late 2014, Sara who had still not yet turned two, returned home with "U".
However, "Z" never went back to the family, instead remaining in care.
The following year Sara was briefly in foster care again, this time when her mother left the family home alleging domestic violence.
When her parents formally separated, she started living with her mother, first at a women's refuge.
Sharif was only allowed supervised contact.
During her murder trial, the jury heard from one of the social workers involved with Sara's case.
In his notes, he recorded that when Sharif went over to Sara during one session, she shouted at him to "go away".
He also noted that "U" said Sharif "hit mummy in the mouth and made her bleed."
Before Sharif split up with Sara's mother, he met another woman, Beinash Batool, who was a customer at his taxi business.
'Vulnerable'
Previously in court, Caroline Carberry KC suggested that when Sharif first met Batool, she was 20 and "vulnerable".
Sharif - 12 years older than Batool - denied getting hold of her phone number from a shopkeeper at Woking station, insisting they met in his taxi.
Ms Carberry said he had known that Batool had been a "victim of honour-based" abuse and been placed in a refuge when she was a teenager.
"You knew the older people in her family thought she had shamed them by running away from home. Do you agree she was an isolated and lonely young woman?
"When you met her it was very obvious this was a young woman who was isolated from her family and struggling at that time in the world, a vulnerable young woman.
"A vulnerable young woman, just the way you like your partners to be," Ms Carberry said.
Sharif replied: "No, she is anything but vulnerable."
Ms Carberry noted how in June 2016 Sharif was ordered by a judge at Guildford family court to undertake a domestic violence perpetrator programme.
Prosecutors said Sara started wearing a hijab to hide her injuries.
The court heard she was taken out of school in April 2023 after teachers spotted bruises on her face and referred her to social services - but the case was closed after six days.
A school friend also said she saw locks on the bedroom doors when she went round to Sara's to play.
On August 8, Sara collapsed and Batool reacted by summoning Sharif home and calling her family 30 times.
Sharif's reaction to finding his daughter lying close to death in Batool's lap was to "whack" her in the stomach twice with a pole for "pretending", jurors heard.
Within hours of Sara's death, the couple were arranging flights to Pakistan for the next day for themselves and the rest of the family.
The defendants returned to the UK on September 13 2023 - leaving behind other children who had travelled with them - and were detained within minutes of a flight touching down at Gatwick airport.
After the verdicts were returned at the Old Bailey, Sara's mother, Olga Sharif, paid tribute to her, saying: "Sara had beautiful, brown eyes and an angelic voice. Sara's smile could brighten up the darkest room."
Mr Justice Cavanagh adjourned sentencing until next Tuesday.
Surrey Police said an inquest and a safeguarding review would now examine whether Sara was failed by the police, social services, the courts or the education system in the years and months leading up to her death.
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Libby Clark from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Sara was a happy, outgoing and lively child described as always laughing, who was cruelly abused and murdered by those closest to her.
“None of us can imagine how appalling and brutal Sara’s treatment was in the last few weeks of her short life. The injuries inflicted on her were absolutely horrendous.
“After Sara died, instead of calling 999, the three defendants immediately made plans to flee the country, thinking only of themselves and not telling police Sara was dead until they had safely landed in Pakistan.
“We were able to build a strong case, showing where each defendant was in the weeks running up to Sara’s death using mobile phone evidence, CCTV sightings and work records.
“In a small house with such a big family, it would have been immediately obvious to all the adults what was happening to Sara. Yet none of them took any action to stop it or report it. They all played their part in the violence that led to her tragic death.
“This was a complex case with much liaison with foreign authorities and our CPS international unit played a significant role in helping us to prosecute this case successfully”.
“We have today secured justice for Sara, a bubbly young girl, who was killed by the adults who should have protected her”.
