MR Justice Cavanagh excused the jury in the Sara Sharif murder trial from further jury service for life. This isn’t a regular occurrence. He did so because of the horrific evidence that they had to hear during the eight-week trial.
The judge told the jury: ‘I know a murder trial is always stressful and traumatic but this case almost above any other has been extremely stressful and traumatic. You have performed your duty magnificently. I’m acutely aware the evidence you had to sit through has been very distressing and you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t find it upsetting.’
Yesterday Mr Justic Cavanagh jailed Sara’s 43-year-old father Urfan Sharif for a minimum of 40 years and her stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, for 33 years for the ten-year-old’s murder. Sharif’s brother Faisal Malik, 29, who was found guilty of causing or allowing Sara’s death was sentenced to 16 years.
What you must understand about the tragedy of Sara is not just that she was murdered in the most brutal and sadistic fashion possible. She was also tortured for her short life before her evil father finally ended her time on earth.
In a trial of many horrifying details, surely this admission by Urfan Sharif in the witness box was the worst. Something that if you were a juror would stay with you until the end of your days.
‘In a shocking admission to the court which left jurors open-mouthed, Sharif admitted to throttling her with his bare hands and battering her with a cricket bat, metal pole and mobile phone, even whacking her in the stomach as she lay dying.’
If you saw someone do this to a dog, you would rightly conclude they were monsters. Now imagine doing it to a ten-year-old girl.
This was the final sadistic assault on Sara at home in Woking, Surrey, by the person who was supposed to protect her. ‘The schoolgirl suffered dozens of serious wounds including human bite marks and iron burns, as well as multiple fractures and a traumatic brain injury.’
There will be the usual reviews and inquiries. But let’s cut to the chase. This time it wasn’t the fault of the social workers who from my reading of things intervened and raised alarms time and again.
The police were involved, social services were involved, teachers made complaints. And every single one was ignored. The problem was no one with any actual power was willing to stand up to Urfan Sharif.
There were two critical points in the short life of Sara Sharif where if different decisions were made, this little girl might not have been tortured to death. The first goes back to before she was born.
‘The local authority brought care proceedings for the children seven days before Sara was born. In a case summary of care proceedings, solicitors for Surrey County council said social workers had concerns regarding the care provided by Sharif and [Sara’s mother, Olga] Domin and that children were not adequately supervised.’
After her birth, Sara spent a week with her mother in hospital before being taken into foster care. She was made subject to a child protection plan. Her parents were allowed to see her three times a week. Urfan Sharif had already been arrested on suspicion of attacking three women including Olga Domin, as well as hitting and biting two children. Police stated there was not enough evidence to charge Sharif despite each woman’s similar claims.
At the hearing just after Sara was born a report to the family court concluded: ‘Whilst the guardian is satisfied that there may be reasonable grounds to believe that the children are likely to suffer significant harm . . . the advantages of the children remaining at home should [be] weighed against the potential harm to the children of removal, particularly to Sara as a newborn child, before we have a full assessment and understanding of these children and their parents’ ability to meet their individual needs.’
The guardian is an independent person appointed by the court to give advice. This person found that the test to remove a child, namely that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the children are likely to suffer significant harm, was fulfilled. But then they go on to hedge their bets and talk of the potential harm of removing Sara as a newborn.
What absolute nonsense is this? The family were already known to the authorities for violence including serious domestic abuse. The advantages to Sara in remaining in that family were that she was tortured for ten years and then brutally murdered by her father and stepmother. What is more infuriating is that newborn babies are the easiest ones to place for adoption – couples want them. But no, the family court left her in the care of her mother and sadistic father.
The worst decision was yet to come. The father and mother separated and now Urfan Sharif was with Beinash Batool.
As the Telegraph reports: ‘The Family Court gave Sara Sharif’s killer father shared custody of his daughter despite knowing he had been accused of abusing her siblings for years. In October 2019, almost four years before Sara was killed, the couple had been awarded shared custody of her by the Family Court.
‘Sara’s mother, who has learning difficulties, had given her consent for the children to be looked after by Batool and Sharif. Allegations of abuse and neglect had been made against both Ms Domin and Sharif at the time. This decision amounted to the death sentence of Sara Sharif.’
Or as the Times reports, after a history of allegations of abuse being made, ‘Sharif applies to Guildford family court for custody of Sara. Sara had made a claim of abuse by Domin and Surrey council supported returning her to her father. Sharif is given custody of Sara.’ And that was that. I hope that the family judge has a very happy Christmas indeed.
I understand it can be hard to keep up, between the child protection plans, and the allegations of domestic violence, and the allegation of abuse by three different women against Urfan Sharif, and the allegations of burning children. For instance, in 2015 there was the following allegation. ‘Sharif is reported to social services for waving a knife around at home in what he says was a “zombie” game. Social workers note that Sharif hit and kicked Domin at home and the pair threaten to kill each other.’
Do not be confused between this hearing at that family court, and the test to be satisfied, and who said what about whom. Let’s just keep this simple. If Urfan Sharif was called John Smith or Gregg Wallace and had this kind of history, I do not believe he would have been awarded custody of his daughter Sara in 2019. But because his name is Urfan Sharif he can do whatever the hell he wants, especially to women and children, and no one says stop.
Other women, such as social workers or teachers, might try to stop him, but they are ignored.
These men from Pakistan come over to Britain on a nonsense study visa or work visa or whatever it is, and they do whatever the hell they like. They can rape their way through Rotherham and Oxford, and no one says stop.
They can traffic working-class white girls and rape them for years on end and no one says stop. They can threaten to set them on fire, or lock them in cages, and it will take years for the police to take action. Years.
And they can import their first cousin from their village in Pakistan to marry them, and that’s fine too. There’s no push-back until now, and when a scientist conducts research into how damaging cousin-marriage is, it gets memory-holed.
We all know why Sara Sharif, trapped in the family home after a family court judge awarded her abusive and sadistic father custody of her tiny body, ‘was the victim of repeated beatings and scaldings, forced to leave school and carry out laundry chores for her stepmother while wearing a hijab to obscure her growing number of bruises and wounds’.
We all know why ‘a post-mortem examination revealed the horrific nature of Sara’s death. Sara had endured 71 recent injuries, which included bleeding on her brain, multiple bruises on her lungs, a rare broken hyoid bone in her neck, and a large area of ulceration across her buttocks from an iron burn. Human bite marks were present across her body, with the evidence indicating that she had been hooded, beaten and restrained while scalding water had been poured over her ankles.’
This happened because Diversity is our Strength. We would not want to upset the multi-culti apple cart, would we? Wouldn’t want to point out that there can be vast cultural differences between immigrants. That would be racist. Even writing this might make me a Far-Right Thug. Remember it is much more important to sentence English grandfathers to entirely disproportionate sentences for Far-Right Thuggery than it is to charge and jail domestic abusers from Pakistan. Domestic abusers who treat women like trash.
I don’t know about you but I really have had enough of this Diversity is our Strength derangement syndrome. I’d settle for the basic principle that everyone is equal before the law, so that if you are accused of extremely serious offences, you are charged and tried, not awarded custody of your daughter who you go on to torture and murder.
So, TCW reader, save yourself the hassle of reading the case review: I can tell you what will be in it. Chances missed. He was clever and manipulative. Blah blah blah. You know why Urfan Sharif got away with it for so long. I know why he got away with it for so long. And so do those who had multiple chances to save Sara Sharif from a life and death of unrelenting cruelty, barbarity and sadism. Shame on them.
Sara Sharif. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.
(By the way, for the hard of learning, do not bother telling me I never write on white child murders as nothing could be further from the truth. I wrote about those two here and here. But we are stuck with our native child killers. So I don’t see why we have to import more.)
