Horror continues to be caused by the details of death of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, the little girl from Pakistan, after weeks of brutal abuse by her father last August at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London.
The court heard that the 10-year-old was found with a plastic bag stuck to her head, like a “makeshift hood”, and was beaten with a cricket bat.
The father of the 10-year-old girl, Ourfan Sharif, is accused of beating his daughter to death before fleeing to Pakistan after subjecting the little girl to weeks of brutal abuse.
Neighbors heard sounds of screaming
As the Daily Mail reports, neighbors noticed that Sara, as early as January 2023, began wearing a hijab. Prosecutor Bill Emblin Jones said it was an attempt to hide the horrific injuries she was receiving at home.
Around the same time neighbors reported hearing sounds of screaming and crying coming from Sarah’s home, jurors were told.
Similar testimony is also available from the elementary school. Staff observed bruising under Sarah’s eyes and on her chin in March 2023. But the girl gave “multiple conflicting stories about how she got the bruises” and teachers noted that she often pulled her hijab to hide her face, the trial was told.
The cricket bat
The body of Sara was found in an upstairs bedroom of her home on August 10, 2023, after her father called the police and confessed to killing her. When police searched the house after the murder, they found Sarah’s blood on the kitchen floor and on a vacuum cleaner.
Leaning against a brick outhouse was a bloodstained cricket ball, on which her blood was on it. Inside the shed the police found a rolling pin, which also had Sarah’s DNA on it.
In a garden shed, police also discovered a belt, which bore the DNA of Sarah as well as Sharif’s father and Faizal Malik’s uncle, according to what the jury heard, and a metal pole with a plastic coating was found, which experts matched to the shape of the girl’s bruises.
The makeshift hoods
The prosecutor showed the jury pictures of the items found in the house, saying: “You can now review the bruises and broken bones that Sarah had suffered with a clearer understanding of how some of these injuries appear to have been caused.”
Officers also found pieces of plastic bag tied with parcel tape in an outbuilding, described as makeshift hoods. They had been placed on the girl’s face and then taped up.
The hoods were stained with Sara’s blood and saliva and allegedly contained Sharif’s fingerprints.
In a shed at the back of the house there was a black rope with hair torn from Sarah’s head and several rolls of bundle tape.
The court heard that Sarah’s 30-year-old stepmother bought 12 rolls of bundle tape in July 2023, just nine days after buying six rolls from Amazon. The tape was used to make the homemade hoods.
In the trash bins, outside the family’s home, towels and Sarah’s tights, soaked with urine, were found, as well as a soiled diaper she had been forced to wear.
“Why don’t the other adults intervene?”
The prosecutor even posed a series of questions to the jury. “If this was being done by one of the adults in the home – why don’t the other adults intervene, why don’t the other adults release her? Why don’t the others help her, preventing this horrible treatment?” she said, among other things.
Meanwhile, he said Sharif removed Sara from the school’s register in April 2023, saying she would be homeschooled, meaning “no one in the outside world” saw her before the murder.
Screams and cries heard by neighbors
Neighbours said they often heard screams and the sound of children crying, accompanied by “banging and rattling”, as if someone was trying to alert someone that they were trapped behind a door.
Neighbour Rebecca Spencer said she often heard screaming, crying and then “dead silence”, while a new tenant, Chloe Redwyn, had said she heard a child screaming, receiving swearing in response and shockingly loud slapping sounds.
None of the neighbors alerted authorities, as Sara appeared “smartly dressed” and there were no obvious signs of injury, it was said.
The court heard that Sharif was “conscious” of what was happening because he was apologizing for the noise.
Local residents observed that Sarah seemed to have many responsibilities within the household, such as taking out the bins every week and hanging out the clothes.
