Sara Sharif murder trial latest: Stepmother regularly ‘screamed’ and ‘lost her temper’, neighbour tells jury
Jurors have heard that neighbours had heard screaming and shouting from the 10-year-old’s home
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Sara Sharif’s stepmother was heard “shouting” towards Sara Sharif as far back as 2018, a neighbour has told the Old Bailey.
Beinash Batool would allegedly lose her temper and was heard using foul language to speak to the 10-year-old, while a door “rattling” was heard as if someone had been locked in a bedroom.
The trial of three family members accused of murdering schoolgirl Sara Sharif has resumed on Wednesday, with a number of neighbours set to give evidence.
Jurors have been told of a “campaign of abuse” against Sara, which left her with over 70 injuries and 25 different fractures, include a broken bone in her neck.
She was discovered dead in a bunkbed at the family home in Woking, after her father Urfan Sharif contacted Surrey Police from Pakistan on 10 August last year to say he had “beat her up too much”
Sharif, 42, her stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, have all denied her murder and causing or allowing the death of a child between 16 December 2022 and 9 August 2023.
Court adjourns for lunch
The trial has taken a break for lunch and will resume at 2pm.
Neighbour insists she heard stepmother using profanities
When questioned by Beinash Batool’s lawyer, Rebecca Spencer repeated that she had heard the stepmother shouting and screaming at the flat in West Byfleet.
She insisted that she had heard profanities being used, despite Caroline Carberry KC pointing out that she had not mentioned the use of the word “f***ing” in her police statement.
Ms Spencer told the Old Bailey: “There’s a right and a wrong way to speak to children, and that wasn’t the right way.”
Recap: Police bodycam footage from night Sara Sharif's body was discovered
Beinash Batool heard swearing and ‘effing’ in flat
Recalling her experience of living above Sara Sharif’s family, Rebecca Spencer said she heard Beinash Batool swearing at the children, using “not very nice words”.
When asked what specific words, she said: “Just effing and not words you would expect to be heard spoken to children.
“I wouldn’t like to define it but in my head I’m thinking f***ing b*****ds”.
She recalled a garden party held in the communal areas in which the Sharif family attended, where Sara joined in the games.
“Sara was a lovely girl, she was taking part in the games with all of them, she spent most of her time chatting with me rather than playing with the other children.”
Neighbour had ‘door shut in my face’ when she asked about the noise
Rebecca Spencer told jurors she had occasionally heard a “thwack” coming from the flat, and had on one occasion asked Beinash Batool if all was well.
“On one occasion it was fever pitch. I said is everything okay in here and they said, “yes, yes” and the door was shut in my face. This was the stepmother.
“It had gone on for a long time, I was just getting to the end of my tether. General constant screaming and crying and banging,” she said.
When she moved from the property, she warned the incoming tenant that they were a “nightmare” family with the noise.
Sara was allegedly ‘shouted’ at and would carry out chores
A neighbour has told the Old Bailey that she witnessed Beinash Batool shouting at Sara while she lived below them.
“I would hear the stepmother shout at Sara,” Rebecca Spencer said.
When asked by the prosecutor how she could tell it was Sara, she responded: “She shouted her name.”
She added that she had also seen the 10-year-old, then aged about six, carry out chores such as taking items down to the bin.
During this period, Urfan Sharif worked as a taxi driver while Batool remained home.
Neighbour heard doors ‘rattling’ as if someone was ‘locked in a bedroom’
A neighbour who lived above the Sharif family in 2018 and 2019 at a maisonette in West Byfleet has told jurors that she had heard Beinash Batool “screaming” and a door “rattling”.
Appearing behind a screen, Rebecca Spencer said her first impression of the noise the family created was “just crying and then rattling of doors and a lot of door slamming, also the stepmother screaming.”
She described frequently hearing the sound of a door rattling at all hours, often after Batool had “lost her temper”.
“The family were never quiet when it came to closing doors but it almost seemed like they’d been locked in a bedroom, that constant rattling of a door. Trying to get it open,” she said.
Trial resumes
The trial of Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik has resumed at the Old Bailey.
Jurors are due to hear from Rebecca Spencer, a neighbour who lived next to the family in West Byfleet.
Swearing and gut-wrenching screams allegedly heard from family home
Last week, jurors heard that that neighbours had heard “shockingly loud” sounds of smacking that were followed by “gut-wrenching screams” coming from the Sharif family home, the court heard.
Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said Chloe Redwin, who moved into the neighbouring property on Eden Grove in September 2020, said she heard screams followed by a woman shouting “shut the f*** up” and “go to your room you f****** b******”.
Ms Redwin said she heard shouting and screaming at “any time of the day or night”, but that she noticed it did not occur when the “father of the household” was at home, he continued.
She said she “often” said hello to Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, and that she thought he was “conscious of the noise his family made, because on occasions he would apologise for it”.
Neighbour had heard ‘banging’ and screaming as far back as 2018
Jurors heard that other neighbours from when the Sharif family lived in West Byfleet, where they moved at some point between 2018 and 2019, and later in Woking, where they lived from April 2023, had heard screams, smacking and crying coming from their home.
The court was told that neighbour Rebecca Spencer would hear: “banging and rattling sounds”, that: “would often be accompanied by the sounds of a child crying or a screaming, followed by complete silence.”
She added in a statement read by prosecutors last week that: “On those occasions I can only describe the silence as deathly quiet and I cannot even imagine what had happened to make the crying or screaming child become immediately so silent.”
Ms Spencer also described bangs from inside the Sharif’s flat like someone had been hit or smacked, the court was told.
She said she considered reporting it to social services but ultimately decided against it.
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