Sara Sharif was ‘singled out’ because she was a girl

Sara Sharif was “singled out” for the torments inflicted on her “because she was a girl”, the judge in charge of trying her father, stepmother and uncle said yesterday at their sentencing in the Old Bailey.

In his remarks, which evoked the 10-year-old schoolgirl’s final desperate moments, Mr Justice Cavanagh noted that “the last thing that Sara felt before she died will have been her own father beating her for supposedly faking injury” after being called home by stepmother Beinash Batool to find his daughter limp and close to death.

There was “no evidence of violence” towards Sara’s older brother, or towards her younger half-siblings, said the judge, “despite the fact that the behaviour of the twins was much more challenging than Sara’s ever was”.

He had no doubt that Sharif and Batool “cared much less for Sara” than they did for their younger children, “because, unlike them, she was not Batool’s natural child”. Sara was also unquestionably treated differently from her older brother, the judge said, even though they had the same parentage, “because he was a boy and she was a girl”.

Addressing Urfan Sharif in the dock, Cavanagh told him: “You treated her in such a way because you considered it to be your right to impose harsh discipline upon her. She was not submissive, as you wanted her to be. She stood up to you.”

Treated as “a skivvy in the family” from the age of six or seven when she moved from her mother’s care to live with her father and stepmother, Sara was made to do the washing, tidy the house and given significant responsibility for caring for her younger brother, the court was told.

However, neither Sharif or Batool “had any concern” for Sara’s happiness, and instead “treated her as if she was worthless”.

Recalling accounts given during the trial of Sara as “a brave, feisty, spirited child”, the judge jailed Urfan Sharif for a minimum term of 40 years for murder, Beinash Batool for 33 years for murder, and Faisal Malik for 16 years for causing or allowing the death of a child.