>> good afternoon britain. it's 12:00 on tuesday the 17th of december. i'm emily carver and i'm tom harwood. >> right where we're going to cross live to the old bailey, where the father and stepmother of ten year old sara sharif are being sentenced for her murder in january 2013. >> for the first few years of her life, she lived with her mother, olga domin, and her older brother and one of her mother's sons from a previous relationship. her older brother had been born in 2010. you, irfan sharif and bannau batool

began a relationship in late 2014, and by early 2015 you were living together in woking in surrey until june 2017, you, irfan sharif, only had supervised contact with sara and her older brother . from then her older brother. from then until march 2019. sara and her brother would stay with you on weekends and during school holidays. in march 2019, sara and her older brother made allegations of abuse at the hands of their mother, and from then on they lived with you in your home. eventually, the court awarded you irfan sharif . awarded you irfan sharif. custody of the two children, but by then three more children had been born to you, irfan sharif. and bannau batool. two female twins were born in january 2016. they were premature and they suffer from autism and global developmental delay. as they

grew older, their behaviour became very challenging. in december 2018, you had a son together who also suffers from ill health. another son was born in july 2022. this means that by summer 2022, the family consisted of two adults and six children. you live together in a small flat in west byfleet from 2017 until april 2023, and then in a three bedroom house in horsell, woking. both homes were too small for a family of this size, especially given the twins challenging behaviour. you, earth and sharif worked long hours as a taxi driver. you spent your time at home looking after the children. the only credible evidence of events from 2019 until the period immediately before saras death comes from three sources. first, there are recovered whatsapp

messages that were sent by ben batool to her sisters. second, there is evidence from the family's neighbours and from teachers, staff and parents at saras primary school. third, there is the evidence that you, irfan sharif, gave after he had abandoned the lie that you had never assaulted sara. your evidence must, however, be regarded with a great degree of scepticism because even after you had made admissions, you continued to conceal the true extent of your cruelty towards sara, and you were not truthful about the involvement and knowledge of the others. irfan shanf knowledge of the others. irfan sharif, it is clear from the evidence that i am sure is accurate that your assaults on sara commenced in or about 2019, soon after she moved to live full time in the family home. from then on, ben batool regularly reported to her sisters that you would go crazy and beat sara. sometimes she

would send photos to her sisters of the bruises on sara's body. i have seen some of the photos, and it is clear from them that you regularly inflicted serious violence on your daughter. you would also design unpleasant punishments for her, such as making her stand against a wall, holding her arms up, or making this small child do sit ups. on occasion, you woke her in the middle of the night to impose a physical punishment upon her. there is a sinister video shown to the jury of you cuddling your youngest son after his birth. sara was next to you trying to play sara was next to you trying to play with the baby, and you were casually slapping her away. a bruise can be seen on her forehead twice in june 2022 and again in april 2023. you took a sudden decision to take sara out of school and to home school her

on each occasion. this was because the visible signs of the beatings that you had carried out had become so obvious that you were worried that the authorities would find out how you were treating her. you did not stand in irfan sharif's way, and you did nothing significant to protect sara. you encouraged and assisted irfan sharif in his assaults, although i cannot be sure that until near the end you actively participated in the assaults upon sara. there are a number of particularly disturbing features about the way that you, irfan sharif, and you, ben batool, habitually treated sara. first, it is clear that sara was singled out amongst the children for this treatment. there is no evidence of violence towards her older brother or towards her younger siblings, despite the fact that the behaviour of the twins was much more challenging than sara's ever was. there were at

least two reasons for this. i have no doubt that you both cared much less for sara than you did for the younger children, because, unlike them, she was not being batus natural child. i also have no doubt that sara was treated differently from her older brother, even though they had the same parentage because he was a boy and she was a girl. second, it is clear that from a very young age, sara was treated as a skivvy in the family. from the age of 6 or 7, she was made to do the washing and to hang it up. she had to tidy up the house. she was made to take a major role in caring for her youngest brother, although from time to time you been ashputtel would perform some acts of kindness towards sara, such as buying her clothes to match the twins clothes. in general, neither of you had any concern

for the happiness or quality of life that this small child. you treated her as if she was worthless. you made no allowances for her age. chillingly, in one whatsapp message, you said that you thought that sara had a jinn, a demon in her. third, though sara was theoretically being homeschooled, there is no evidence that she received any form of education whatsoever. the pretext of home schooling was simply a ruse adopted for wholly selfish purposes, to cover up the abuse to which sara was subject, and to continue with the abuse beyond the gaze of the authorities. at the time when sara was being subjected to despicable abuse, she was also being deprived of an education. fourth, for some time, sara was made to wear the hijab and her

whole body was covered up. this was not for any religious reasons, and it was certainly not because sara chose to do so. you did not wear a hijab being ash batool and the women in irfan sharif's family did not do so. this was another expedient to cover up the bruises that were all over sara's body. as for your motives, irfan sharif, your beatings and other abuse of sara, you treated her in such a way because you considered it to be your right to impose harsh discipline upon her. sara was a brave, feisty and spirited child. she was not submissive as you wanted her to be. she stood up to you. you considered that her behaviour entitled you to chastise her physically. and i have no doubt that your ego and sense of self—importance were boosted by the power that you wielded over her and the rest of

the family. in fact, sara was not particularly badly behaved. she was a normal child of her age.the she was a normal child of her age. the beatings began when she was 6 or 7. sara never did anything that might conceivably have justified any part of the treatment that she endured. i should add that there was no sexual motive behind your treatment of sara. so far as you were concerned. bannau you went along with the abuse by your husband? as i have said, you cared less about sara because she was not your own natural child. you were heard by neighbours yelling and swearing at sara. it is true that you made clear to your sisters in the whatsapp messages on many occasions that you were horrified by the abuse that irfan sharif was inflicting on sara, but you took no serious steps to stop it. you would sometimes put cream on her wounds. on one occasion in

february 2022, you saw a solicitor and took advice about a divorce and about obtaining a non—molestation order and arrangement orders for your stepchildren. but you took it no further. you did not intervene with any vigour to stop irfan sharif from hitting sara. you did not seek intervention to protect sara because you were concerned that if you did so, you would lose custody of all the children. in effect, you were prepared to sacrifice sara because you did not want to lose your other children. put bluntly, you did not care enough about sara to save her. at times, you took active steps to cover up for