Sara Sharif’s father left the dock in tears today as a neighbour told how his wife would regularly shout verbal abuse at their children.
Chloe Redwin moved into neighbour Rebecca Spencer’s flat in November 2020 and said problems started from the ‘first night’ when she heard ‘a child screaming’.
‘It would start off as one child screaming and then it was more of a cluster of numerous screams all together,’ she told the court.
‘I would describe it as if you took away from the child their favourite toy and they wanted that and they were screaming for it.’
Sara, 10, was allegedly beaten to death before Batool fled to Pakistan with Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, 42, and her uncle Faisal Malik, 29.
Urfan then phoned the police and confessed to the killing but prosecutors allege all three are culpable for murder and causing or allowing the death.
Ms Redwin said it was always a female woman screaming – meaning stepmother Beinash Batool.
On some occasions she would hear ‘a gut wrenching scream’, she said.
Describing the mother’s shouting, Ms Redwin said: ‘Often you would hear ”shut the f**k up”,’ she said. ‘You would hear ”shut the f*** up you b*****d” and ”shut up you c***s”.
Sara, 10, (pictured) was allegedly beaten to death before Batool fled to Pakistan with Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, 42, and her uncle Faisal Malik, 29
Beinash Batool, 30, (pictured) allegedly swore at her stepdaughter and ordered her to ‘deal with’ the children if they started crying
At one point Sara’s father Urfan Sharif walked out in tears and the court paused to allow him to return.
Batool remained emotionless, occasionally shaking her head as the witness described her alleged foul mouthed tirades.
As court proceedings resumed, Ms Redwin said there were ‘two different types of screaming’ coming from the property.
In the evening she would hear a ‘more distressed scream’.
Ms Redwin said that Batool would shout ‘very loud’ at the children. ‘In my opinion it was very aggressive,’ she told the court. ‘It was almost forceful. She had a determination behind what she was saying.
‘I heard shouting, ”Go you your room”. Mostly the word ”b*****d” would follow.’
‘I heard what I believe to be smacking. I would say it was a person smacking another person.
Police charged Sharif, (left) his wife Beinash Batool and his younger brother Faisal Malik, 29, (right) who were all living in the house at the time of the murder
Ms Spencer lived in the apartment on top of the family’s ground floor apartment in West Byfleet, Surrey (pictured) between 2018 and 2020
‘A smack followed by a scream and then being told to go to your room.’
Ms Redwin had to change her son’s room ‘because of the noise’, jurors heard.
She told how her son was a similar age to Sara and they would often play together.
‘Sara would always be in charge of looking after the children outside and if one would start crying she would shout out of the window telling Sara to look after them’, she said.
‘Like a command – and it was loud.’
Detailing the chores Sara performed, Ms Redwin said: ‘She would hang out the clothes to dry. Before school she would take out the rubbish.
‘She was the only person I saw taking out the household rubbish. After school she went straight to the back garden to get the laundry.’
Ms Redwin said Batool often had a ‘tug of war’ in the street with the children who tried not to go to school.
But ‘Sara would always go [to school]’, she said. She was ‘very happy’ to go.
The father would sometimes apologise about the noise saying they had a ‘rough night’.
Sara started wearing a hijab in January 2023.
Ms Redwin commented on this to Batool, telling her in the hallway of their shared building ‘Oh doesn’t she look nice in her headscarf’.
‘The conversation in my opinion was shut down in quite an aggressive tone back to me,’ Ms Redwin said. Batool told her abruptly: ‘She wants to follow her religion.’
Prosecutors allege all three are culpable for murder and causing or allowing the death of Sara
Ms Redwin, who often shared a cigarette with Urfan, said he was less aggressive.
He told her Sara ‘had been learning about the muslim faith and she is very interested in this and she wanted to explore and learn more.’
Ms Redwin did not report what she heard to any authorities.
Caroline Carberry KC, for Batool, suggested Ms Redwin was suggesting she heard her client being verbally abusive ‘in hindsight’ after learning of Sara’s death. Ms Redwin denied this.
Batool allegedly swore at her stepdaughter and ordered her to ‘deal with’ the children if they started crying.
Neighbour Ms Spencer sometimes heard a ‘thwack’ and ‘doors rattling’ as if someone had been ‘locked in a bedroom’ and was trying to get out.
She broke down in tears today as she told jurors she considered reporting what she heard to authorities – but never did.
Ms Spencer lived in the apartment on top of the family’s ground floor apartment in West Byfleet, Surrey between 2018 and 2020.
She described how Urfan had a black BMW with taxi signs on and was ‘out in the day time a lot’ but Batool was nearly always at home.
Court artist drawing shows Sarah Sharif’s father Urfan Sharif (right) her uncle Faisal Malik (left), and stepmother Beinash Batool (centre) sitting alongside dock officers at the Old Bailey
Ms Spencer’s experience was so bad she claims that when a friend on the street, Chloe Redwin, suggested moving in, she warned her about the family
Ms Spencer told the Old Bailey that ‘very often’ she heard ‘the step mother screaming at the children’.
She described how she could hear Sara singled out for abuse.
‘I would hear the stepmother shout at Sara because she screamed her name,’ she told prosecutor William Jones KC.
‘I would hear the step mum screaming at the children and then it going silent.’
She added: ‘It often seemed like they were being locked in a bedroom that kind of constant rattling of a door trying to get it open.
‘That was often. Normally after the stepmother had screamed at them. The children screamed but as if having a tantrum… Then it would go quiet.’
Ms Spencer apologised to the court as she described the sort of words she heard Batool scream. ‘She said f***ing. F***ing bastards,’ she explained.
‘Just effing get…. Just not very nice, Not words you would expect to be spoken to children.’
If the children started crying when they were playing outside, Batool ‘would just scream out of the window’ for Sara to ‘just deal with it’.
Remembering one particularly bad incident, she said: ‘It was fever pitch.’ Ms Spencer went down and asked ‘Is everything ok in here?’
‘They said, ”Yes, yes”, and the door was shut in my face. That was the stepmother.
‘It had gone on for a long time and I was coming to the end of my tether a bit. The constant screaming and crying and banging.’
She would try and speak to the family about it when she saw them. ‘I would say in passing, ”You have got your hands full”. Words to that effect,’ she said.
Court artist sketch of Sara Sharif’s stepmother Beinash Batool appearing via video-link, from Bronzefield women’s prison in Surrey
Ms Spencer described getting to know Sara when she threw a birthday party for her ex-partner’s son in September 2020 in their communal garden, calling her a ‘lovely little girl’
It was so bad that when a friend on the street, Ms Redwin, suggested moving in, Ms Spencer warned her about the family.
‘I said to her are you sure you want to move in there with the family,’ she said.
Ms Spencer also saw Sara ‘constantly doing chores’. She described getting to know Sara when she threw a birthday party for her ex-partner’s son in September 2020 in their communal garden.
‘Sara was a lovely little girl,’ she said. ‘She was taking part in all the games. She spent most of her time chatting to me rather than playing with the other children.
Ms Spencer said she ‘can’t recall’ Urfan ever shouting and said it was not as noisy when he was at home.
It was also ‘different’ during term time when Sara was at school. Ms Spencer remembered how she was ‘particularly dreading the summer holidays’.
She said she contacted the council because she was concerned about overcrowding in the property.
Though her face was hidden by a curtain for her own comfort, Ms Spencer was heard sobbing as she confirmed to the prosecutor that she never reported the abusive language.
Sara suffered 71 external injuries as well as 11 spinal fractures, two broken ribs, broken shoulder blades, arms and hands, and a broken collarbone. Three of her fingers were also fractured.
A postmortem examination revealed Sara had suffered ‘multiple and extensive injuries’ over a ‘sustained and extended’ period before her death in August last year.
Urfan, Batool, and Malik all deny murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The trial continues.
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