A court in Pakistan has awarded guardianship of Sara Sharif’s five siblings to their paternal grandfather, ending years of legal wrangling over where the children should live.
The siblings, aged between four and 16, will remain with Muhammed Sharif at his home in Jhelum. All but the youngest are attending schools in Pakistan and the children are understood to retain their British passports.
Before the ruling, the children were asked to speak to the judge. The eldest said they were comfortable and settled in Pakistan.
Mr Sharif said: “It is my responsibility to ensure they get the best possible education and care.” He added that he would “help them to return to a normal life”, saying: “Hardships can happen to any person at any time, at any place.”
The decision follows Surrey County Council’s admission in June that it had failed in an attempt to return the children to Britain. They had been made wards of court in England after Sara’s death.
The children were taken to Pakistan after Sara’s death
Sara, a 10-year-old schoolgirl, was found dead at a house in Woking, Surrey, on 10 August 2023. Her father, Urfan Sharif, and stepmother, Beinash Batool, had fled to Pakistan with Sara’s uncle, Faisal Malik, taking the five children with them.
The siblings were found on 11 September 2023 when police raided their grandfather’s home in Jhelum. They were placed in a childcare facility until October that year, when they were handed into their grandfather’s temporary custody.
Sharif later phoned 999 to confess to killing Sara, believing he had escaped. He was captured and extradited to Britain to face trial at the Old Bailey.
Sharif and Batool were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Malik was convicted of allowing Sara’s death and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
A court heard that Sara had suffered more than 100 injuries. A judge described the killing as the worst crime he had encountered.
A review later found that social workers had evidence of extensive domestic abuse by Sharif before Sara was attacked, but that it had been lost within the system. It identified missed opportunities to protect her, including a failure to investigate why she had suddenly begun wearing a hijab.
Sharif had been ordered to attend a domestic violence perpetrator programme in 2016 after Sara’s mother accused him of hitting her and the children. He admitted extensive and wide-ranging domestic abuse but attended only eight of 26 sessions.
A coroner leading the inquest into Sara’s death has ordered Surrey County Council to disclose more than 24,000 pages of documents. The eight-week inquest, examining what state agencies knew about Sara before she was killed, is scheduled for next October.
