LONDON: The trial of three family members accused of the murder of a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl has shocked the UK, as details of the horrific abuse she was subjected to emerged in court.
Sarah Sharif was found dead in bed – with broken bones, bites and burn marks all over her body – at her family home in Woking, southern England, in August 2023.
This discovery led to the launch of an international manhunt for Sarah’s relatives accused of murder, after they fled to Pakistan the previous day with five of Sarah’s brothers.
Her father, taxi driver Irfan Sharif (42 years old), her stepmother Binash Batool (30 years old), and her uncle Faisal Malik (29 years old), returned to Britain the following month, and have been on trial since mid-October. They deny these accusations.
Sarah suffered 25 fractures, including to the hyoid bone in her neck, London’s Old Bailey heard.
Anthony Fremont, an orthopedic pathologist, told the jury he concluded it was the result of “compression to the neck” most often caused by “manual strangulation”.
The girl had dozens of bruises, including bite marks, while her DNA, as well as that of her father and uncle, was discovered on the cricket bat and both ends of the belt.
Sarah’s blood was found inside a carrier bag believed to have been placed over her head, while blood and hair were detected on a piece of brown tape.
“black beating”
Jurors heard on Friday that Batoul was the only defendant who refused to submit dental impressions of her teeth.
The court had previously learned of WhatsApp messages she sent to her sister over several years, in which she stated that Sharif had beaten Sarah for being “rude and rebellious.”
“She is covered in bruises and literally beaten black,” one message read.
Batoul added: “There are jinn inside her,” referring to supernatural beings from mythology who resemble jinn.
Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones revealed on Friday that four months before her death, the sheriff told Sarah’s school that she would be home-schooled “with immediate effect”.
About the same time, the family moved a short distance from the town of West Byfleet to Woking.
By then, teachers noticed bruises on her body, in June 2022 and March 2023.
When asked about the injuries, Sarah did not want to answer and hid her head in her arms, the court heard.
While giving evidence earlier in the trial, teacher Helen Simons described her as a “happy child”, who could be “sassy” at times.
Simmons recounted how she saw bruises on her face twice, and when the girl did not provide a consistent account of her injuries, the school referred probation services.
This prompted Batoul to confront her at school two weeks later and claim the marks had been made with a pen, jurors heard.
“I lost it”
Meanwhile, neighbors regularly heard screaming, disturbance and crying.
Rebecca Spencer, who lived below the family, said she could hear Batoul “screaming.”
“I could hear the stepmother screaming at Sarah,” she testified.
Spencer also said she heard noises that sounded like someone being “locked in a bedroom,” with the “constant rattling of the door” as they were “trying to open it.”
Sitting in court behind plexiglass, the three defendants listened Friday morning with their heads bowed.
The sheriff – a short, thin man with solid features – looked on to watch clips of their arrest at Gatwick Airport in September 2023 being played to jurors.
In the video clip captured by the cameras installed on the officers’ bodies, Batoul raised her hand and said: “I think you are looking for us.”
The day after fleeing Britain a month ago, Sharif called British police from Pakistan to explain that he had “legally punished my daughter and she died.”
He added: “I hit her. I didn’t want to kill her, but I hit her a lot,” claiming that she was “naughty.”
Police found Sarah’s body on a bunk bed covered with a sheet, along with a letter in which her father claimed he had not intended to kill her but had written: “I lost her.”
The trial continues next week.