Hammond Road in Woking is a well to do family estate filled with charming well kept houses but one semi-detached property at the end of the terrace lies abandoned.
The grass outside the property is overgrown and on the empty driveway two floral tributes lie sodden in the rain.
The only clue as to what happened here is found in the garden: where a plastic children’s slide sits abandoned by the fence.
It was here, behind the door of Number 10, that Sara Sharif endured torment beyond belief at the hands of her own family members culminating in her tragic death at the age of just ten-years-old.
Unbeknownst to their neighbours, the Sharif family were living a double life as evil and sadistic torturers of Sara.
Urfan Sharif, aided by his wife and Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, beat Sara to death in an act of unspeakable brutality after spending 16 years torturing women and children.
The child suffered an unimaginable ordeal at the hands of her family, who bound her arms and legs and hooded her in a plastic bag secured with parcel tape around her head while they battered her with a cricket bat, metal pole and a rolling pin, strangled her until her neck broke, burnt her with an iron and bit her.
Whilst being interviewed by police, Sara’s stepmother Batool was seen to smirk at proceedings and refused to say whether she had other loved her.
When police found her broken little body dumped under the pink covers of her bunk bed by her fleeing family there were so many injuries- at least 71 externally and 29 fractures – that it was impossible to say which wound caused her death.
It was here, behind the door of Number 10, that Sara Sharif endured torment beyond belief at the hands of her own family members
The only clue as to what happened here is found in the garden: where a plastic children’s slide sits abandoned by the fence
Sara Sharif’s evil father faces life in prison today for the murder of the schoolgirl (pictured)
Urfan Sharif, 42, was emotionless as he was found guilty of murdering his daughter
Sara’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, wept as she was found guilty of murdering the girl. Her uncle Faisal Malik was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child
Known to the police and children’s services since at least 2010 for attacking his then-wife, Olga Domin, his own children and arrested three times for attacking adults – Sharif’s reign of terror only ended with Sara’s death in August last year.
The 42-year-old taxi driver had fled to his native Pakistan with his wife and willing accomplice Batool thinking he would get away with it after police repeatedly failed to bring charges when assaults were reported by three women and two children.
But on Wednesday, after an eight week trial at the Old Bailey, Sharif, 43, and Batool, 30, were found guilty of murder. Sharif’s brother Faisal Malik, 29, was convicted of causing or allowing the death of a child.
Now as the dust settles around the tragic affair, residents of Hammond Road and colleagues of Sharif are trying to come to terms with what happened: and what, if anything, could have been done to stop it.
Residents of Hammond Road and colleagues of Sharif are trying to come to terms with what happened
The nature of the crimes committed round the corner from locals Rich and Sue have shaken them to the core
The nature of the crimes committed round the corner from locals Rich and Sue have shaken them to the core.
‘It is beyond belief, it was a shock to us, it’s on the doorstep’, Rich said.
The couple were laying floral tributes at the house on Thursday following the Sharifs guilty verdicts when they told MailOnline they attended 12 days of the Old Bailey trial, desperate to understand how such horror could have been brought to their doorstep.
Rich said: ‘We wanted to see how they looked in the dock, they had no great remorse. He obviously lied out of his teeth saying ‘evil woman, evil woman’. We saw a lot in there. We still haven’t really got to the bottom of it.
‘How can you sit there and not break down? The only time I saw her [Batool] show it was when they showed video footage of the other children. She didn’t want to go in court, so they put her on video link.
‘The uncle, he looked dishevelled, spent, drained man. Wrapped up involved in this. He had the opportunity to ring the police to say something terrible has happened but he didn’t.
‘To be in court and hear the professor talk of the 21 fractures. They said it’s the sort of thing you see in a snowboarding accident. You wonder how she lived for so long, even with a smile on her face. How she was walking.
‘The professor said she didn’t die of her fractures, she lived with them, how a child can go through that. If you broke, or have a fracture, you are forever hurting.’
To the cabbies at Woking station, Urfan Sharif was simply another driver covering evening shifts – ferrying weary commuters home after a long day’s work.
‘We used to talk, he was very clever, he speaks very fast, hard worker, I didn’t see any problems’, Sultan Mahmood says recalling Sharif, ‘he would always give a quick answer, quick question’.
Shakeel Ahmed, who has worked the ranks at the Surrey commuter town station since 1999 echoes the sentiment, adding: ‘He would come here as a nice guy, one time he helped me in a fight with passengers.
‘I didn’t know what the situation was at home.’
To his colleagues Sharif was ‘acceptable’, ‘nice’, but was known to have a ‘shorter temper’ and was ‘not a cool person in general’.
Fellow taxi driver Sultan Mahmood told the MailOnline Sharif seemed normal
Shakeel Ahmed, who has worked the ranks at the Surrey commuter town station since 1999 echoes the sentiment
Sara suffered an unimaginable ordeal at the hands of her father and stepmother
Sara suffered broken bones from being hit with a cricket bat, pictured above in evidence
A Surrey Police photo of a white pole shown in court as evidence during the murder trial
While rarely talking about his family or any aspects of his personal life, his six children would sometimes come to the station and he told other drivers he was looking at seven-seater people carriers for his family of eight.
‘It was very little time when they come here, six months’, says Ali Raza, a taxi driver, who lives a few doors down from the now locked up Sharif household in Horsell.
He told MailOnline how he would regularly see Sharif out and about but rarely the children, Batool, or Malik, a Portsmouth University student who worked part-time in McDonald’s.
Ali added: ‘Sharif, I saw him and I know a friend of his and he said he was ok.
‘I heard that when he divorced that because the court wanted to give the kid to his ex-wife, he fought and got Sara back.’
When news of Sara’s murder got to him, Ali’s family did not sleep for a week and he still struggles to believe the murder even happened.
Neighbours on the road said they would also see Sharif out and about and the family opposite were known to play with the Sharif children. There was no answer when MailOnline visited the address.
Behind the pristine white door of her £500,000 home, Sara’s life was a living hell.
Beaten senseless with a cricket bat, a metal pole from a high chair, burned with a domestic iron, hooded with plastic bags fastened down with packing tape, and bitten – her life was one of untold violence, misery and abuse she could not defend herself from.
Her torture preceded the six months the family lived on Hammond Road, with Rebecca Spencer, who lived above the Sharifs in West Byfleet described them as a ‘nightmare family’, telling the court she heard banging and hysterical screaming.
Another neighbour at the old address, Chloe Redwin, told the court she would regularly hear smacking and yelling, as well as Batool swearing.
The abuse, however, was largely out of the ear of neighbours in Hammond Road who had no idea.
By March 2023 Sara was wearing a hijab but teachers still noticed several bruises across her face
A photo from Surrey Police of a room inside the family house in Woking, Surrey
A grab from a video issued by Surrey Police of Sara Sharif singing and playing a guitar
Judy Lozeron who lives next door, told the BBC she found it ‘strange’ how she never saw Sara smile, but added: ‘There was no reason for us to suspect anything else’.
Sara was hauled out of St Mary’s School in June 2022 to be home-schooled, a move which concerned teachers, but she was back the following September for the new academic year.
By March 2023 Sara was wearing a hijab but teachers still noticed several bruises across her face – which Sara inconsistently blamed on roller skating and bike accidents – and reported their concerns to Surrey County Council’s social services.
Despite the Sharifs being known to the council, a six day investigation found no reason to take further action and the school were told to ‘monitor’ Sara.
In her final weeks up to August 8, 2023, Sara sustained at least 25 broken bones and a traumatic brain injury. A post-mortem found she had 71 external injuries.
She died when her father rained down blows with a metal pole to her stomach before tucking her up in bed and fleeing with his family to Pakistan.
Text messages sent by one of the Sharif children to a friend said: ‘Hello. Urgent. My sister just passed away’.
Two days later Urfan rang police from Pakistan where he admitted to killing his daughter. Sara was found by police officers next to a confession note written by her father.
Sara Sharif, who lived in Woking, is pictured during her reception year at school
Sara Sharif had suffered more than 25 broken bones from being hit repeatedly
Sara was failed by authorities after a decade of missed opportunities to stop her violent father
The couple say Sara was let down by Surrey’s childrens services and the local authority, an accusation levelled in a letter among the flowers the couple left.
Back at the taxi rank, Shakeel Ahmed said: ‘When I heard the news I shook. How can you do this? I don’t understand how this happened.’
One driver simply said: ‘Social services have failed.’
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said questions need to be answered over Sara’s murder.
He added: ‘I don’t think that we should allow ourselves to think that whatever the rules on smacking are that’s got anything to do with this case.
‘This is about violence. It’s about abuse. It’s about making sure that [there are] protecting safeguards for children, particularly those being home-schooled. So that’s where I think the questions are.’
Fairytale dream of princess Sara Sharif covered up her nightmare reality
Sara Sharif’s body was found under a blanket in a bunk bed at her Woking home
By Emily Pennink
Sara Sharif dreamed of being a fairytale princess, even as the reality of her Cinderella story in the leafy town of Woking was a nightmare from which she would never escape.
The 10-year-old had gone to live with her Pakistani father Urfan Sharif and ‘beautiful’ young stepmother Beinash Batool following a custody battle with her Polish mother Olga.
Any hopes that her turbulent early years were behind her would have quickly been squashed as a pattern of abuse emerged within two years.
She was put to work doing the laundry and housework by Batool, who liked to keep up appearances and keep a tidy home.
Batool made her views clear by repeatedly complaining to her sister Qandeela that Sharif was hitting Sara for being ‘naughty’ and ‘rude and rebellious’.
She blamed her stepdaughter for her own misery by baiting Sharif, saying she cut up his clothes, hid his keys and tore up documents, even suggesting she had a ‘jinn’ or demon in her.
According to the prosecution, Batool was complicit in Sharif’s abuse because of the number of times she would call him home to sort out his daughter’s behaviour, knowing what would happen.
Sharif did not hold back with his punishments and tried to beat her into submission with a bat and pole, but nothing could dim her bright, bold and fierce nature.
Tragically, covering up at all costs appeared to have been drilled into Sara as she was subjected to degrading and horrific treatment by the adults in her life.
Even when the bruises started to show, she rejected teachers who had tried to find out what was going on.
Teaching assistant Hayley Holden described Sara as a ‘bubbly, confident, chatty, engaging child’ who would dance, sing and put on a show for her.
She said: ‘She was a little feisty. If she had an opinion she would voice it and she was not afraid to answer back. She never spoke about her home life.’
There were no pretty pink ballgowns for Sara as she was made to wear a black hijab pulled down over her face to hide the many bruises.
When the assaults intensified and teachers noticed marks on her face and reported them to social services, she was taken out of school entirely.
Before then, Sara’s despair briefly surfaced when she came into class and buried her head in her arms on a desk.
When asked what was wrong, she turned away and would not talk about it.
In the final weeks of her life, Sara was physically broken, causing her to vomit and and become incontinent, giving Sharif even more excuses to beat her up for making a mess and soiling herself.
When that failed to satisfy her father’s warped idea of discipline, she was put in a nappy, tied up with packaging tape and her head covered in a homemade hood and beaten even more, it was claimed in court.
Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said the reality was that violence against Sara had become so ‘normalised’ no-one batted an eyelid at her bruises during a family barbecue.
Sara Sharif had a broken hyoid bone in her neck from being throttled, iron burns on her buttocks, boiling water burns on her feet, and human bite marks on her arm and thigh
Her spirit shone through on video taken just two days before her death showing her smiling and dancing at home, despite enduring the excruciating pain of multiple broken bones and iron burns on her bottom.
A handwritten notebook found after her death provided a further glimpse into Sara’s inner world.
She wrote a fairystory in which ‘Sara’ was a princess and ‘Beinash’ was a queen.
The only clue that she was getting into trouble was a letter to her parents apologising for being ‘rude’ and ‘answering back’.
New videos released by police after the trial showed Sara sat on a black leather sofa singing and playing guitar and dancing in a playground.
Batool’s lawyer, Caroline Carberry KC, had put all the blame on Sharif for what happened to Sara.
Paying tribute to Sara’s strength of character and resilience in the face of the horrific abuse, she said: ‘No doubt that spirit, that boldness from his daughter was what Urfan Sharif tried to silence with his beating, control, cruel punishment and degrading treatment of her.
‘Terrorising not just Sara but everyone else who lived under the roof with him.’
Today, Sharif and Batool were found guilty at the Old Bailey of Sara’s murder and her uncle Faisal Malik was convicted of causing or allowing her death.
Libby Clark, specialist prosecutor for CPS South East, said: ‘Seeing the footage of Sara laughing and joking even when she had signs of injuries to her body and knowing what a happy child she was at school, she loved singing and dancing and knowing what happened to her, those are the most affecting parts of the case.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk