Father, stepmum of 10-year-old Sara Sharif guilty of her horror murder
Sara Sharif died with horrific injuries, including human bite marks – inflicted by her own father and his wife. Warning: Distressing
Warning: Distressing
The mother of a young girl brutally killed by her father and stepmother has blasted the pair for killing her 10-year-old daughter Sara Sharif, stating: “It is not human to do this to your own child.”
Olga Domin, 38, lost custody of Sara in 2019, despite accusing her ex-husband Urfan Sharif of abuse following their separation four years earlier.
Sara then moved in with him and his new wife, Beinash Batool, where she suffered a campaign of abuse that ultimately led to her death last year, The Sun reports.
The pair have just been found guilty of Sara’s murder after her body was found by police in her bunk bed on August 10, 2023.
A post mortem uncovered she had 25 fractures and 71 external injuries, including six human bite marks, and burns from a domestic iron.
Taxi driver Sharif, 43, beat Sara with a cricket bat and metal pole, sometimes tying her hands and legs together with tape.
She was made to wear makeshift hoods during attacks and Sharif urged another child to hit her like a punchbag as if it was a game in what was described in court as a “daily living hell” for the 10-year-old.
Batool, 30, often called Sharif back from work saying Sara was being naughty, knowing he would beat her up, the court heard.
Meanwhile, Sara’s uncle 29-year-old Faisal Malik – who lived with them in an apartment then a cramped three-bedroom house in Woking, Surrey – failed to raise the alarm whenever Sara was attacked.
Sharif hit Sara twice on the abdomen when she lay dying because he thought she was pretending to be ill.
He refused to call for medical help and investigators suspect the three jet-washed Sara’s body before fleeing to Pakistan, leaving her in the bottom bunk, The Sun added.
She had started wearing a hijab to school to conceal injuries to her face and head.
A jury at London’s Old Bailey – the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales – found Sharif and Batool guilty of murder on Thursday following an eight-week trial.
Malik was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child.
Ms Domin, a Polish national, said she still cannot believe what happened to her child while in the custody of her father.
“I still can’t believe what is going on, this situation,” she said. “It’s not human to do this stuff to your own child.
“I can’t believe he was hitting her belly when she was dying. I still can’t manage that. They should all get the same for what they were doing. Monster is too nice word for him anyway.
“I hope he will be dying in jail.”
Paying tribute to “angelic” Sara, who dreamt of being on The X Factor, Ms Domin said: “She was always laughing, smiling.
“She loved all the kids. She was always helping, and making videos. She was an amazing child. She was saying ‘I’ll be a model’.
“I just don’t get why she is where she is.”
Sara was living with Ms Domin from 2015, when they fled to a domestic refuge to escape Sharif’s violence.
He was having supervised contact at a Government-run children’s centre in Reading before a family court hearing in 2019 which ruled Sara should live with Sharif.
It is understood Ms Domin did not contest the ruling at the time.
Friends say Sharif took accusations made against him and threw them back at Ms Domin — and used the same tactic in his trial by blaming Batool for Sara’s murder, before admitting he too beat her up.
Ms Domin was allowed contact with Sara, supervised by Batool, but she said the couple blocked this a few years before Sara’s death.
The youngster has been laid to rest in Poland in a grave bearing her mum’s surname and adorned with flowers. Ms Domin visits daily.
Ms Domin also said in a statement released through Surrey Police: “My dear Sara, I ask God to please take care of my little girl, she was taken too soon.
“Sara had beautiful brown eyes and an angelic voice. Sara’s smile could brighten up the darkest room.
“Everyone who knew Sara will know her unique character, her beautiful smile and loud laugh.
“She will always be in our hearts, her laughter will bring warmth to our lives. We miss Sara very much. Love you Princess.”
Sharif also dished out horrific abuse to Ms Domin, who said he did it all with “really evil eyes”.
She said: “He choked me with a belt, he tried to set me on fire, he beat me with his fists. He was putting the oil on my body. His friend stopped him. He already had the lighter in his hand.”
Ms Domin said Sharif would sleep with money all the time and she had to plead for cash for food for the children.
She added: “He told me that he dressed me and no one would help me if I left him because I don’t know the language and I have never worked here.
“He said he didn’t like my friend. I wasn’t allowed to meet her. I went to pick up something from the shop and he wouldn’t let me out. I was working nights cleaning the pubs.
“They kicked him out of McDonald’s (where he was a shift manager) because he was stealing money. He didn’t have a job. He took all the money from me.
“I took £100 (about $AU200) to buy clothes for my kids and he hit me because I took the money.
“He would be cunning and would take my phone and he locked me out around three times.
“When he did this he had evil eyes, really evil eyes. I was alone in a foreign country, without a language, without a family, until I finally realised that this was not the life I had and left.”
Ms Domin was taken to a domestic violence refuge in 2015 and their divorce was completed in 2017.
During the trial, Sharif spent six days lying to Old Bailey jurors, claiming Batool was an “evil psycho” and the “true villain of the piece”.
On his seventh day in the witness box, Sharif dramatically confessed to beating Sara with a cricket bat and pole and ultimately killing her.
But the self-confessed coward could never bring himself to admit he had murdered Sara, The Sun reported.
At one point he told the court he beat her repeatedly and intended to cause her “really serious harm” — but he then went back on his testimony insisting he had never meant to hurt her ever.
Police found a note by her body, written by Sharif, which said: “I legally punished her and she died.”
Once he landed in Pakistan, he called emergency services to say: “I’ve killed my daughter. I legally punished her and she died.”
Batool and Malik both refused to give evidence.
Det Chief Insp Craig Emmerson, of Surrey Police, said the trio only sought to preserve their own interests and showed no remorse.
Mr Emerson added: “Sara was a bright and lively little girl who loved singing and dancing.
“Sara’s spirit and bravery and resilience in the face of the suffering that she endured has shone through from the vast inquiries that have been undertaken in this case.
“Sara’s young life was brought to an end as a result of the brutal abuse and unspeakable violence inflicted on her by Sharif and Batool, which Malik did nothing to prevent.”
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Meanwhile a friend of Ms Domin asked: “How could social services ever give Sara to that man?
“He’s the worst of the worst. He treated her like a dog.”
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
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