Sara Sharif murder: ‘sadist’ father and stepmother jailed for life
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Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, sentenced for killing 10-year-old who was found dead in Surrey home. Sara Sharif’s mother has called her daughter’s murderers “sadists and executioners” as they were jailed for life. Olga Domin joined the Old Bailey hearing remotely as Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, were sentenced for the 10-year-old’s murder.
On Tuesday the judge, Mr Justice Cavanagh, described the campaign of abuse against Sara as “torture” and condemned the defendants for not showing “a shred of remorse”. The prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said Sara was subjected to serious violence from at least the age of six with a variety of weapons including a cricket bat, an improvised metal truncheon made from the broken leg of a high chair and a domestic iron.
Sharif and Batool were found guilty of Sara’s murder last Wednesday after an eight-week trial at the Old Bailey. Sara’s paternal uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, who was living with the family at the time, was found not guilty of murder but was convicted of causing or allowing her death.
Cavanagh sentenced Sharif to a minimum term of 40 years and Batool to a minimum term of 33 years. Malik was jailed for 16 years. The judge’s voice shook as he described some of the injuries suffered by Sara, describing the abuse as “nothing short of gruesome”.
In a victim impact statement read out at the Old Bailey by Emlyn Jones, Domin said: “Sara was always smiling. She had her own unique character. The only thing I had left to give to my daughter was to give her a beautiful Catholic funeral that she deserves.
