Sara Sharif murder case: Father and stepmother jailed for 40 and 30 years respectively

LONDON: The father and stepmother of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl who was found dead in her home in UK, were on Tuesday jailed for 40 and 33 years respectively for her murder after a trial which heard harrowing details of Sara’s treatment.

Sara Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London, after what prosecutors said was a campaign of ‘serious and repeated violence’.

The family fled to Pakistan immediately after Sara Sharif was killed, before they were arrested in September 2023 at London’s Gatwick airport after flying from Dubai.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors at the start of the trial that Sara had suffered injuries including burns, multiple broken bones and bite marks.

Sara’s father Irfan Sharif, 43, and his wife Beenish Batool, 30, stood trial at London’s Old Bailey court charged with her murder, which they denied.

Last week, the jury convicted Irfan Sharif and Beenish of Sara’s murder. Sara’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of causing or allowing Sara’s death.

Sharif and Batool appeared in the dock at the Old Bailey, where they heard a statement read on behalf of Sara’s mother Olga Domin who called them ‘executioners’. “You are sadists, although even this word is not enough for you,” her statement read. “I would say you are executioners.”

“The courts at the Old Bailey have been witness to many accounts of awful crimes, but few can have been more terrible than the account of the despicable treatment of this poor child that the jury in this case have had to endure,” Cavanagh said.