‘Psycho’ stepmother tied up ‘terrified’ Sara Sharif with tape, court told

Sara Sharif’s “evil and deranged” stepmother was caught red-handed after tying up the “terrified” 10-year-old at home with packing tape, a court has heard.

Beinash Batool, 30, Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at the Old Bailey charged with murder after a campaign of abuse.

Jurors heard Sara suffered dozens of injuries, including burns from an iron, human bite marks and signs of self-control, before dying at her home in Woking, Surrey, last August.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Sharif wept as he cast the blame on his wife who sat in the dock, saying: “I never knew I was living with evil and psychopath.”

On one occasion, he said he came home to find Sara with her arms tied behind her back with packing tape in the television room.

Batool was present and seemed “shocked” when he saw him. Sharif said: “I screamed. I was angry, I was irritated.

“She, Sara, was terrified. She was scared. She didn’t say much. I hugged her, kissed her, and then Beinash and I went to the kitchen.

“She apologized to me and promised she wouldn’t do it again. And even after those days, I was so stupid that I believed her.”

He said he cut his daughter loose with a knife from the kitchen.

Lawyer Naeem Mian KC asked why he had not reported this and said: “Did your daughter, the girl you fought for custody of, have her arms tied behind her back at home with packing tape?”

The suspect said he was “an idiot” and should have called the police.

Mr Mian said: “According to you, you just caught her red-handed. This is your daughter.’

Sharif said: “She (Batool) apologized. I’ve been wrong for a long time.”

Jurors were told Batool stayed at home with Sara while Sharif worked long hours as a taxi driver and cooked and cleaned for the family on weekends.

Sharif denied Batool’s repeated claims to her sister that he was “beating up” his daughter.

He admitted to hitting Sara “several times,” but only because Batool told him she was “playing a game.”

Referring to an alleged incident that Batool told her sister, Mr Mian said: “You have had a long day, especially Batool told you that Sara played a game.

“Wouldn’t you just say, ‘I’ll take care of it,’ go into her bedroom, wake her up and kick the shit out of her?”

Sharif replied: “No sir. She always blamed her for everything that happened.

‘I only hit her because I was obliged to. My daughter Sara did everything she could to make her life hell.”

He continued, “Beinash accused Sara all the time. She blamed my daughter.

‘I shouldn’t have believed her. I never knew I was living with evil and psychopath.”

Mr. Mian said, “According to her, you are the psychopath, you are the one who brought a cricket bat to Sara.”

Sharif denied this and said he had never hit her with a white pole, bit her or put a homemade hood over her head.

He told jurors: “The person who bit my daughter on the arm like an animal? I didn’t do it, Faisal didn’t do it… Who else was home?’

Mr Mian reminded jurors of evidence showing that only Batool had refused to give her dental impressions to compare with the marks on Sara’s body.

In late July last year, Sharif said he learned from Batool that Sara was wearing a diaper because she “couldn’t control her bladder.”

When he challenged his wife about it, she told him it was “normal” for growing girls to have their bodies change, the court heard.

Sharif told the judges: “Sara wet herself a few times. Beinash told me we have to put a diaper on her, she is growing up, she is going through that time of the month.

Mr. Mian said, “Are you just making this up because you, the psychopath, burned Sara? You burned her so bad she couldn’t sit down. With an iron.

“Did you get burned, did you brand Sara on her buttocks?”

Sharif replied: “No sir.”

He denied seeing any bruises on her body, only a “scratch on the nose” as Sara wore a hijab, long sleeves and leggings even when she was at home.

He told jurors he never saw her in pain or unable to move, with the only other injury being blisters on her feet, which were treated with antiseptic cream.

On the day of her death, Sara did the laundry but never did the ironing because she was “too young” and it was “dangerous,” he said.

That evening, Sharif was at work when he received a call from Batool telling him to “come home”, the court heard.

He replied that he was “driving, not flying” and that he would be back in 15 to 20 minutes.

Sharif denied that he was “burning with rage to get home” and resolve the issue with Sara, even stopping at a co-op along the way to buy cigarettes or vapes.

Jurors heard that a child in the home sent an ‘urgent’ text message to a friend at 8.38pm to say Sara had ‘just passed away’.

The following day the defendants took a flight to Pakistan and were arrested on their return to Britain on September 13.

The defendants, formerly of Hammond Road, Woking, have denied murder and causing or permitting the death of a child between December 16, 2022 and August 9, 2023.