Another unimaginable terror story is rocking Britain: the violent death of 10-year-old Sara Sharif at the hands of her father, Urfan Sharif.

Little Sarah was found dead with 71 injuries inflicted in the last days of her life – including a head injury and a burn from a hot iron. The killer claimed he didn't mean to kill her, but was "punishing" her for her behavior.

In the last months of her short life, she was forced to drop out of school and do housework for her stepmother. Dozens of injuries testify to a daily life full of physical abuse. Although neighbors heard the girl's voices and cries, and her teachers were concerned by the marks on her body, social workers did not know exactly what she was going through, nor could they intervene in time.

However, her life was difficult from the beginning. Sarah's father had met her mother, Olga, on social media when his UK visa was about to expire. The girl was born in 2013, but her parents' relationship ended in separation just a year later. During the custody battle, Olga accused her ex-husband of domestic violence and was awarded custody of their daughter.

There were many signs that Sharifi was not a suitable father: among other things, a psychological test had shown him to be manipulative and apathetic. But when the girl, now six, accused her mother of abusing her, she was left in her father's custody.

In her new home, which Sarah's father now shared with his wife, Beinash Batool, she found conditions worse than those she had left behind.

The stepmother's messages and macabre violence against Sara

In a message Batool sent to her sister in May 2021, she wrote that:

"Urfan drove him to the wood. She's full of bruises, she's blackened. I feel so bad for Sarah, she can't even walk. I want to denounce him.”

Other messages said that Sara had started vomiting when she ate, that she suffered from anxiety and that Sharif would hit her whenever she was "mischievous". In one of them, she wrote to her sister:

"If something happens to him, I won't be able to forgive myself."

However, she never reported the incident to the police or social services.

It wasn't until the deceased toddler's teachers noticed suspicious injuries in 2022 and 2023, such as bruising on her face, and received conflicting answers when questioning her, that they contacted child welfare services. But after the Easter holidays, the girl did not return to school. She was found dead, four months later, in a bed in an empty house. Next to her little corpse was a note:

"It is I, Urfan Sharif, who beat him to death. I swear to God it was not my intention to do this. But I just lost it!”

Father and stepmother