The Extent of Her Injuries Was Mind Blowing- The Story of Sara Sharif

The Extent of Her Injuries Was Mind Blowing- The Story of Sara Sharif

The three relatives were arrested at Gatwick Airport on Wednesday evening after spending 35 days in Pakistan, leaving the UK a day before Sarah’s body was discovered. The court heard she was found on the bottom bunk of a bed under a blanket in an upstairs bedroom of her home.

The story I have for you today is an incredibly sad one about a little girl who was mistreated by pretty much everyone in her life for years, all the way up until that led to her death. This is the story of Sarah Sharif.

Sarah Sharif was born on January 11, 2013, in Slough, Berkshire, to her father, Urfan Sharif, and her Polish-born mother, Olga Drtina. Sarah was said to be a very caring and confident little girl who had the biggest smile. She was full of energy and would talk the ear off anyone who would listen. Sarah’s favorite color was pink, and her favorite food was chicken biryani. She loved playing the guitar, singing, and dancing, and would often talk about her dream of winning the *X Factor* TV show.

Sarah’s father, Urfan, had moved to the UK from Pakistan in 2001 to study. It was then that he would meet Sarah’s mother, who spoke very little English. The two met online in 2009, then had gotten married a few months later in 2010. The couple had a son together before Sarah was born 3 years later.

But before Sarah was even born, the family was known to police and child protective services, and due to this, at the time that she was born, a child protection plan was immediately put into place. Police had been involved with the family four times between 2010 and 2012. There had been growing concerns of violence and neglect in the home, including towards Sarah’s older brother.

Additionally, Sarah’s father, Urfan, had been accused of attacking three women, including Olga, as well as hitting and biting children. Two of his ex-girlfriends had previously accused him of false imprisonment in 2007 and in 2009. In 2010, one of Sarah’s older siblings, who was three at the time, was found wandering alone in a shop. Later that year, Sarah’s father, Urfan, was arrested for assaulting her mother, Olga, and one of the children had gotten hurt during the assault.

Then, in 2012, one of her siblings would tell their teacher that Daddy had hit him. The following year, the sibling would say that Mommy had hit him. This child was also found to have a burn mark and was again found wandering alone in public about half a mile away from the family’s home.

In December of 2012, just a month before Sarah was born, the family was said to be living in a homeless shelter. Prior to this, they had lived in a one-bedroom rented flat where the family all shared a bed. The rest of the house had not been furnished, and the children had limited age-appropriate toys.

Then, in 2013, a social worker would notice a burn mark on one of Sarah’s siblings’ legs, and it was explained away as being an accident from a barbecue. Five months later, the child was again seen with a burn mark, and the parents explained it away as an accident—the child had just simply fallen into an iron.

When Sarah was nearly 2 years old, in November of 2014, she would be taken into foster care. This had come after her brother claimed that he had been punched by his father and bitten very high by his mother. At that time, the foster carers would notice that there was what looked to be cigarette burns on both Sarah and her sibling, but their father would just claim that they were chickenpox scars.

At a hearing for an emergency protection order that took place that month, it was reported that Sarah’s brother was visibly distressed and shaking. When Olga went to pick him up, the child said, “I don’t want to go home, Mommy hits.” Social workers also described Sarah as being very small, not eating a lot, and she didn’t respond to being carried and wouldn’t wrap her legs around her carer.

At the end of 2014, Sarah and one of her brothers would be returned to their parents’ care. The following year, Sarah would be put briefly into foster care yet again, this time after her mother, Olga, had fled the family home amidst alleged domestic violence.

According to Olga, her husband had tightened a belt around her neck. Olga would also say that in the past, Urfan had attempted to set her on fire by pouring oil all over her. At one point, he even locked her up inside a room in their home for an entire day before police came and released her.

Once Olga had finally left, Urfan, Sarah, and her brother began living with their mother at a women’s shelter. Her father was then only allowed supervised visits. These visits did not go very well, however, and during one, Urfan would go over to Sarah, who would scream at him to go away. Sarah would also flinch whenever Urfan would tell her off, but she also surprisingly cuddled him during a visit.

For the next few years, Sarah would stay living with her mother, and for some time, things seemed to have settled down. But by Easter of 2019, Urfan claimed that Sarah had told him that Olga had been violent towards her. He even recorded Sarah on his phone saying that Olga had pinched and slapped her, but it’s unclear if the father had just encouraged her to say these things or not.

Social services would then again become involved in Sarah’s life and determine who she was going to live with. And despite Urfan’s previous history of violence, a social worker would determine that Sarah and her other sibling were to go live with him and their new stepmother.

Now, before Urfan had officially split up with Sarah’s mother in 2014, he met another woman named Beinash Batool, who was a customer at his taxi business. The two had later gotten married. Beinash had quite the history herself, and when she’d met Urfan, she was actually married to one husband in Pakistan and one in Luton.

Beinash’s complicated love life had become easier to manage in March of 2015 when one of her husbands was arrested and sent to jail for his role in smuggling nearly £200,000 worth of heroin into the UK from Pakistan. She would find herself in legal trouble as well the following month, in April of 2015, after she had stolen gold jewelry from a friend she had been staying with that was worth approximately £411, or about $521 USD. Beinash had even bought replica jewelry that she tried to pass off as the original. She ended up admitting theft and fraud by false representation and would walk free on a conditional charge.

She then moved in with Urfan, whose relationship with Olga had begun to break down. Once they were living together, she soon found herself pregnant. The couple would end up having a total of four children together, but this put her in a very awkward situation since she was also still married to two other men and hadn’t told Urfan.

So, Beinash came up with a story, telling her ex who was in jail that she was pregnant with twins. She then told Urfan that she had already had the twins with her ex who was in jail. This is how she explained having to go visit him in prison so they could discuss care arrangements for their children. Urfan would later say that she had even shown him fake photos of these supposed children that she had and would even send them birthday cards and gifts each year.

By 2017, Beinash’s husband who was in jail was deported back to Pakistan to serve the rest of his sentence. Meanwhile, her first husband had returned to the UK on a spousal visa after they had successfully registered their marriage. Somehow, she was able to keep her new relationship and her new living arrangement secret from him because in 2018, her and Urfan had tied the knot in a civil ceremony in Surrey.

Eventually, however, her first husband would learn about her deception, and he returned back to Pakistan heartbroken in 2019. Then, in 2022, Urfan would also discover Beinash’s deception over her twins. This came after he discovered a letter from her ex demanding to see evidence that these children actually existed. But he would end up staying with her.

Now, the judge who had decided that Sarah and her siblings should return to Urfan’s care was the same one who had been involved with previous hearings from 2013 to 2015, meaning that he was aware of all the previous allegations made against Urfan. Now, Sarah’s mother had consented to this arrangement, and she was now only to have contact with her children for two hours every Saturday, and these visits would be supervised by their stepmother, Beinash. Social services knew that Urfan had previously been abusive, but they believed that now that he was remarried, he was changing.

Eventually, however, Beinash and Urfan would put a stop to Sarah seeing her mother, Olga. Once she was returned to her father’s care, Urfan and his new wife were living in a small ground-floor flat in West Byfleet, and Sarah started going to the local school, St Mary’s Primary. But it was clear to those around them that things were not going so well in the home.

One upstairs neighbor named Rebecca Spencer described them as being a nightmare family. She said that she very frequently heard banging and rattling coming from their home. It was a metallic noise, like someone banging and pushing on a door that would not open. These noises were very often followed by screams that sounded to be coming from a child, and shortly after that, it would fall completely dead silent.

On one occasion, when things had gotten extremely loud, the neighbor went over next door to see if things were okay. Beinash would tell her, “Yes, yes,” before slamming the door in her face.

Another neighbor claimed that she frequently heard yelling and smacking followed by the gut-wrenching screams of a female child. She would, in addition, hear Beinash swearing at the children and calling them horrible names. The neighbor said that the only time that it was quiet in that home was when the family was away on holiday. Also, according to this neighbor, the screaming and yelling primarily took place while Urfan was away at work. She claimed that she had never heard a male voice being abusive towards the children. But none of these neighbors had ever gotten concerned enough to contact police or social services.

In December of 2020, Beinash would send her sister some photos of Sarah with some clearly visible bruising on her arms and face. And over the next two years, she would continue to send extremely concerning text messages to her sister about Sarah’s treatment in the home. She would say how Urfan had left Sarah covered in bruises and how one time she felt so bad for the little girl because she couldn’t walk. She also claimed that one night Urfan had kept Sarah up the entire night, making her do sit-ups.

Beinash also detailed in these messages to her sister about how her husband would go ballistic, spilling hot tea across the living room, smashing up picture frames, and damaging the curtains. In one message, she even said that she had to push Urfan out of the way so he would not hurt Sarah. But once again, neither Beinash nor her sister would contact police or social services.

Describing another incident on May 8, 2021, in a series of messages, Beinash wrote to her sister saying, “Urfan is going crazy. I’m kind of having a panic attack. He’s literally going to break her arm or leg. I have no idea what to do. I’m in the other room, he’s locked us out.” Her sister merely replied back telling her not to worry and to just read the Quran.

In a text that she had sent to her sister on February 10, 2022, Beinash said that Urfan had hurt his daughter in the middle of the night, at 1:30 in the morning, while Sarah was still sleeping. Apparently, she had been exhibiting bad behavior for a while, and he all of a sudden just got upset about it in the middle of the night and attacked her.

Beinash would additionally tell her family that Sarah was being bullied at school. Her teacher would also say that she remembered that Sarah did not keep friends very easily.

Around June of 2022, Sarah was forced to start wearing a hijab, even though no one else in her family did. Multiple people found this to be very odd, but didn’t question it. Many times, Sarah would even pull her hijab to hide her face if she did not want to speak or was being told off.

Despite the hijab covering most of her face, by March of 2023, her teacher started to notice bruising on her face. On March 10, she saw a dark bruise on the underside of her chin as well as under her eye on her cheek. Sarah would say that she had fallen over while riding on some roller skates, but her account was inconsistent. She would tell her friend that she had fallen off of her bike. The same friend said that many of Sarah’s injuries were often hard to see because she would wear long pants and long shirts every day. Additionally, this friend had gone over Sarah’s house to play one time and had seen locks on all the bedroom doors.

Sarah’s school also recorded that Beinash was very verbally abusive towards the children when she did school drop-off. This caused the officials from Sarah’s school to become concerned, and they contacted social services. And for a third time, child services became involved in Sarah’s life. However, after a six-day investigation, the council told the school that no further action was being taken, but asked the school to monitor the situation—which I don’t know what that means, because if you’re not taking action now, what else could they possibly see that is going to make you take action? This was also despite them knowing the long history of allegations that the family had against them.

Then, on March 28, Sarah once again went to school with a bruise on her face. According to her stepmother, this injury had been caused by a pen.

The following month, the family moved out of the tiny two-bedroom council flat into a bigger semi-detached house in Woking, also owned by Surrey County Council. Faisal Malik, Sarah’s uncle, had been living with the family for about four months by that point, and he also moved into the new house with them. From that moment on, Sarah never went back to school. Her father would write an email to her school, St Mary’s, saying that she was now being homeschooled by her stepmother. This was because she was being bullied for her hijab—but the only reason she was being made to wear the hijab in the first place was to cover up all the bruising that was on her.

The new neighbors of the family would say that they got the feeling that Sarah was treated as a bit of a servant because she was seen doing chores such as putting the wash outside and watching after the other children. One neighbor said that he had never seen the girl smile, run, laugh, or play with the other children outside.

By this point, things had started to get even worse for Sarah. On May 25, 2023, Beinash would send her sister a text message in which she said that Urfan had beat up his daughter like crazy. Sarah’s oxygen level had dropped really low, she was finding it hard to stay awake, and her breathing was very rapid. In fact, things had gotten so awful that Sarah was often vomiting and was forced to wear a diaper because she kept soiling herself, yet they never took her to a hospital.

Then, one afternoon in August, a neighbor whose back garden overlooked the Sharif’s house heard a piercing scream that suddenly cut short. According to her, it sounded like the scream of someone in pain, and it did not sound good at all.

On August 6, 2023, Sarah was filmed at home by her stepmother dancing in front of the TV, and she looked to be okay. But later that day, according to Beinash, the little girl’s father had once again hurt her. Two days later, Sarah’s body could take no more, and she started to visibly deteriorate. Her father decided that she was just pretending, though, and he would hit her in the stomach with a metal pole. Later that same night, Sarah’s brother would text a friend saying, “Hello, urgent, my sister just passed away.”

Then, on the morning of August 10, 2023, shortly before 3:00 a.m., police would receive a phone call from Urfan. He told them that they would find his daughter Sarah dead in their Surrey home. He also told them that he had fled and was now in Pakistan. Urfan claimed that Sarah had been naughty over the last three to four weeks and he had just legally punished her, but it resulted in her death.

After authorities arrived at the home, they would find little Sarah’s body underneath a blanket on her bunk bed. A pathologist would later determine that Sarah had over 25 different fractures to various parts of her body, including 10 to her spine. She also had an extremely rare neck injury to her hyoid bone; the doctor had never before seen this in a child. Sarah additionally had bleeding on her brain, a burn mark from an iron, a burn from scalding water, and what appeared to be human bite marks. Her injuries were extensive and had been sustained over an extended period of time. Her cause of death was ruled as being complications arising from multiple injuries and neglect.

A handwritten three-page note was also found underneath Sarah’s pillow that was written by her father and said:

> “Whoever sees this note, it’s me, Urfan Sharif, who killed my daughter by beating. I am running away because I am scared, but I promise that I will hand over myself and take punishment. I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her, but I lost it.”

It additionally read, “I love you, Sarah.”

Traces of the little girl’s blood were found on the kitchen floor, a vacuum cleaner, a rolling pin, and a cricket bat. A police search of the family home also uncovered homemade hoods that had been crafted out of plastic bags and duct tape that had been made to restrain Sarah. These hoods had been found in a trash can on top of Sarah’s uncle’s McDonald’s uniform. A belt with her DNA on it was also found in a child’s playhouse that was out in the garden. Also in the garden were Sarah’s soiled leggings and diaper that were next to a jet wash, as if her body had been taken out there and power-washed down.

When police discovered the little girl’s body, there was no one else in the home but her. That’s because the day prior, tickets had been purchased for Urfan, his wife, and his brother. They had then boarded a flight to Pakistan. Along with them, they had taken Urfan and Beinash’s five other children, who were between the ages of 1 and 13.

So the search for the three adults and five children in Pakistan began. Police in Jhelum, where Urfan’s relatives lived, raided 20 properties looking for the fugitives. They also detained Urfan’s two brothers and a brother-in-law who lived in the country in an unknown location to try and force their wanted relatives to come out of hiding.

Urfan’s father and Sarah’s grandfather, Muhammad Sharif, said that he had first seen his son when he arrived in Pakistan, but he later changed his story and said he had no idea where they were. Sarah’s grandfather claimed that he believed that his granddaughter’s death had just been accidental, and he urged his son to turn himself into police so he could fight his case legally. Muhammad also claimed that police had been harassing his family. Muhammad himself was later detained by police in an attempt to locate the fugitives. Ten relatives in total would end up being detained by police and questioned.

Then, a little over a week after police had discovered Sarah’s body, her stepmother, Beinash, and her father, Urfan, appeared in a video where they were sitting side by side, and Beinash read a written statement along with Urfan:

> “Sharif and Faisal Malik are coming forward and presenting ourselves. There are a couple of things I would like to address. Firstly, I would like to talk about Sarah. Sarah’s death was an incident. Our family in Pakistan are severely affected by all that is going on. They are harassing my extended family. They have also illegally raided many more of my family members’ homes. We have already approached our lawyer, and our lawyer is representing us in Rawalpindi High Court. The next court hearing is on 19th September 2023. My main concern is that the Pakistani police will torture or kill us; that is why we have gone into hiding. Lastly, we are willing to cooperate with the UK authorities and fight our case in court.”

Now, Urfan’s brother, Faisal, had previously said that Sarah had just fallen down the stairs and she broke her neck, which was how she died. This had happened when just Beinash was home with the children. But in the video, this was something that she denied and said that the media had just been making up lies about her family.

Surrey police would say that the video was significant in their investigation and they were working with international partners such as Interpol to determine their next steps.

Then, on September 11, 2023, Sarah’s other siblings were finally located by police. They had been found inside their grandfather Muhammad’s home in Pakistan. He had been hiding the children there, but it wasn’t known for how long. Muhammad would tell authorities that he had met Urfan, Beinash, and Faisal on the first day that they had been in Pakistan, and that’s when he had taken the children. Upon their arrival, the three adults had told Muhammad that they were scared and that’s why they had fled the UK. The grandfather would tell them that they could stay with him if they wanted to, but he claimed that they actually hadn’t stayed with him and he hadn’t heard from them in about 3 days.

Police, on the other hand, believed that the three suspects had indeed been staying with Muhammad for at least some time. Muhammad would also make the argument that police had never asked him about the children or where the children were. He claimed that authorities had only seemed interested in the location of their parents. Authorities sent the five children to temporarily live in a government childcare facility while officials in the UK worked on securing their safe return. As of right now, the children have been returned to their grandfather’s care and remain in Pakistan.

Two days after the children were found, the three adult suspects were also located. They were arrested at London Gatwick Airport as they were disembarking a flight from Sialkot via Dubai:

> *”We are—yes, much. Are you okay just to swap over? Just yourself, come with me and if you go with my colleague over over there—is that right, if you got a cabin bag?”*
> *”He does, he does.”*
> *”Which one is your bag?”*
> *”I don’t have any bag.”*
> *”You have no bag? Okay, look overhead. Please, I’ll explain more outside. Okay, I’ll explain outside. Hold on to him, I’ll—yeah, could you confirm your name for me please, sir?”*
> *”Yeah, Sharif.”*
> *”Sharif, yeah? Sharif, yes, yeah?”*
> *”Okay, so, um, the time is 1947 hours. The body of Sarah Sharif was discovered on the 10th of August 2023 on 6 Hammond Road in Horsell. On the injury sustained by her and investigation conducted, you are suspected of her murder. You are therefore arrested for murder of Sarah Sharif. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court, and anything you do say may be given in evidence. You are therefore arrested for the murder of Sarah Sharif…”*

All three were charged with murder along with an additional charge of causing or allowing the death of a child:

> *”Please could you introduce yourself? What’s your name?”*
> *”So, my name is Beinash Batool.”*
> *”And you are about to be interviewed for the offense of murder. What’s your understanding of murder? What’s your understanding of that offense?”*
> *”Killing someone.”*
> *”Yeah, okay. So, it’s intentionally killing somebody, okay? In in very simple terms, okay? That’s the offense which you’ve been arrested for, and that’s the offense of which we’re going to speak to you about, all right? What happened to Sarah?”*
> *No comment.*
> *”What did you see?”*
> *No comment.*
> *”Whose choice was it how you left Sarah?”*
> *No comment.*
> *”You know, Door, just as you said in the video, you want to come back to the UK, clear your name in the UK courts—well, here we are, this is the start of the process. So, why would you not speak to us now?”*
> *No comment.*
> *”Who did that to Sarah?”*
> *No comment.*
> *”Do you love Sarah?”*
> *No comment.*
> *”Did you care about her at all?”*
> *No comment.*

When they went to trial for Sarah’s murder in September of 2024, her father, Urfan, was still—as he had since the time of his arrest—denying almost everything that had occurred in the home, instead blaming his wife for his daughter’s death. In the witness box, he would even cry about his Sarah and called her a beautiful angel.

While the father admitted to slapping his daughter in the past, he said that her death had nothing to do with him. He claimed that he had actually never even been there when his wife had been mistreating Sarah. But when she died, she had died in his arms, which made him feel numb, like the whole world had just fallen down around him.

According to him, on August 8, just after 7:00 p.m., Beinash had called him and told him to come home. He had then arrived there about 45 minutes later. When he did, he claimed that he found Sarah on his wife’s lap in the bedroom. According to Bein, Sarah and another child had been running around and down the stairs when she suddenly fell. The stepmother claimed that Sarah was just being dramatic, though—she was pretending to be hurt and not getting up.

Urfan had then lifted up Sarah’s arm and asked her to get up, but she didn’t; she was completely limp. So he took her from Beinash’s lap and tapped her face. The father claimed that Sarah had opened her eyes a bit, then asked for water because she was thirsty, but he didn’t have time to get her the water before she again fell unconscious.

The father stated that at that point, he shouted for his wife to call for an ambulance because Sarah was not breathing and had no pulse. Urfan began administering CPR to his daughter, but after about 10 minutes, Beinash hugged Urfan and told him, “There’s no point, there is no need, because she’s dead.”

He claimed that he hadn’t called emergency services himself because Beinash had actually snatched the phone away from him, then told him that he needed to protect his family. Urfan said that the initial plan was for Beinash to go stay with her family in Luton so that he could call police and say that Sarah had died in his care. Beinash had then made 30 different calls to family members, but none would help because they were scared. So instead, Beinash told Urfan that he needed to take responsibility for Sarah’s death, saying that he would just go to prison for about three to five years if he did this. This prompted him to then write the letter taking the blame for Sarah’s death so he could protect his family.

Urfan would end up remaining in Pakistan for 35 days. According to him, he had always intended on returning to the UK to take his punishment and protect his family, but he said that he had changed his mind about taking the fall for his daughter’s murder once he was arrested and questioned by police. When they had told him about the extent of Sarah’s injuries, he said, “I couldn’t believe it. I was just conflicted. I was crying. Why on Earth didn’t I know about that? So much was going on under my nose and I didn’t know.” In court, Urfan would even point to his wife and call her a psycho and evil.

However, under forensic cross-examination on his seventh day in the witness box, Urfan would finally crack. He told the prosecution that he wanted to say something, then admitted that what he previously said in his phone call to police, as well as the letter that had been found underneath Sarah’s pillow, was the truth—he’d meant every single word of it. Urfan admitted that his daughter had died because of him. He admitted to using a cricket bat and a white metal pole to cause her fractures. As he sat there shaking and crying, Urfan said, “I take full responsibility for everything.”

However, he never admitted to the burn marks or bite marks on Sarah’s body, though the bite marks were found as not belonging to the father. Sarah’s uncle had also been ruled out, but her stepmother had refused to give her dental impressions for comparison. The prosecution would claim that the marks that were found on Sarah’s body would have had to have been done by two people: one to hold her down, and the other with the iron. Her father denied doing it, therefore that leaves two other adults. Urfan, however, like a complete lie, tried to blame the other children in the home.

After a brief court recess, Urfan decided that he was not going to take the blame for Sarah’s death, claiming that while he had done all these horrific things to her, he had never intended to murder her—which clearly does not mean that you’re not guilty just because you didn’t mean to do something, come on.

In one of the few messages to his wife that was found on Urfan’s phone, it said:

> “Sarah cut my laces. You and her have made my life hell. Once she is at home, sort her out before I do.”

During the trial, it was also suggested that the 10-year-old had been put into diapers as a solution to maintain restraint once her hands and feet had already been tied together by packaging tape—which, in the weeks leading up to her death, her stepmother had bought 18 rolls of.

Another odd detail of the case that came out in court was the fact that the family had just recently purchased a Ring doorbell. The doorbell had been purchased on July 11, 2023, but when police searched the property, it had been removed. The bracket was still there, however, fixed to the exterior of the house. So where had it gone?

Sections from 10-year-old Sarah’s notebook were also read aloud in court. In one undated letter, she would say that she was sorry for being rude and ended by saying, “Please forgive me. I am so, so sorry.” Then, a birthday message that she had written to her father, Urfan, said:

> “I love you so much. Thank you for looking after us on the weekends and making food for us at the weekends. Thank you, Dad, from Sarah.”

Another excerpt said:

> “Our family is the best in town. We spread love all around the world.”

The court heard how Sarah’s notebook also contained a fairy tale that she had written about a princess named Sarah and a queen named Beinash. She described Beinash as being the best, loving, and caring mother in the world, while another passage said:

> “Mom, my mom who is beautiful and young. Dad, my father who earns money for us so we can eat, sleep, and have shelter.”

Yet both of these people had been treating this little girl absolutely horrifically, specifically for at least the last two years of her life.

Both Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool would be found guilty of murder. Sarah’s uncle, Faisal Malik, was cleared of murder but was found guilty of causing or allowing a child’s death. Urfan and Beinash would both be sentenced to life behind bars, while Faisal was sentenced to 16 years.

Following Sarah’s death, it was discovered that the social worker who had provided a report to the court when her father had won custody of her and her sibling was very inexperienced and had only been on the job at that point for nine months. But neither the social worker’s name nor the judge’s name who made this decision has been provided to the public. Overall, the social worker had concluded that Beinash and Urfan were capable of providing Sarah with safety, stability, emotional warmth, and guidance.

Surrey County Council has since said that an independent review of professionals who had contact with Sarah and her family is underway.

Shortly after her murder, a vigil was held for Sarah Sharif outside her home on Hammond Road, with those in attendance lighting candles and laying down flowers in her memory. The little girl’s teacher would say about her:

> “She was a very caring, very confident little girl who had the cutest, biggest smile and absolutely loved singing and dancing.”

She said that the school has now introduced a singing award in her memory. A polka-dot painted bench now also stands in the playground of Sarah’s old school that has a plaque on it reading: “Sarah’s Buddy Bench.”

Sarah’s mother, Olga, was said to have buried her daughter in her native Poland.

Well, thank you for listening to Sarah’s story today. This poor little girl was failed by nearly everyone in her life: her father mistreated her, her mother mistreated her, her stepmother mistreated her, even her uncle seemed to have been involved, and child services did nothing to step in and keep this terrible child abuse from happening.