Sara Sharif case #2

[MissTeddy]

BBC 1 news showed some beautiful photos of her. Some later ones, taken at school where she is wearing her hijab. Even when she must have been in such fear and she is trying her best at the school tasks and smiling so beautifully.
Sara, you were a lovely little girl. I hope you can feel the love and admiration we have for you, I wish someone could have saved you.

 

[moldwarp]

Surrey County Council have commissioned an in depth review of her death to 'explore the lessons that could be learned'

How many times can agencies fail to protect our most vulnerable children before it's deemed 'too much'. Drives me nuts.

Yeah I mean these reviews cost £000'000s...you kinda wish they'd spent that money on paying social workers better and empowering them to actually, ya know, protect children.

 

[moldwarp]

Reading her apologies and loveliness to them both has made me so sad. She sounds just like a typical 9/10 year old whose family is the centre of their world. It's made me so upset to think she was emotionally attached and dependent on people who treated her like an animal. I think it's got to me because she seemed great - a really cute, brave and friendly child that anyone should be privileged to call their child. Bastards. Absolute bastards.

As someone who was abused as a child I will say that she probably did genuinely blame herself for the abuse, and loved her abusive caregivers. But it's not a pure kind of love, it's interspersed with outbursts of hate and anger (which only invite more punishment) and you're very aware that you're the underdog, having to cringe and beg for love and walk on eggshells so it doesn't all go south again. You become really adept at reading the teeniest changes in your abusive caregiver's mood the way sailors can read teeny changes in cloud formations.

It's a proper headfuck.

 

[MedeaWho]

Honestly I couldn’t possibly begrudge Olga for burying her daughter the way she felt was best. Islam was a religion of Sara’s murderers, I completely understand her not considering this for her daughter under these circumstances. I believe funerals are for the survivors/family/loved ones, not the deceased (although also realise this is not necessarily a mainstream view)

 

[Tabitha D]

I hope he survives and has lasting injuries. He doesn’t deserve to die and be free of the fear of violence.

I do too. He has a 40-year sentence to serve and deserves to feel fear and pain every single day of it.

 

[GlitterFluff]

Father & stepmother found guilty of murder

 

[Pavement1979]

Reading her apologies and loveliness to them both has made me so sad. She sounds just like a typical 9/10 year old whose family is the centre of their world. It's made me so upset to think she was emotionally attached and dependent on people who treated her like an animal. I think it's got to me because she seemed great - a really cute, brave and friendly child that anyone should be privileged to call their child. Bastards. Absolute bastards.

 

[moldwarp]

From The Times:


The father of Sara Sharif has been found guilty of murdering the ten-year-old after subjecting her to a “campaign of abuse”.

His wife and Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, has also been found guilty of murder after the couple killed Sara at their home in Woking, Surrey, on August 8 last year.

Faisal Malik, 29, Sharif’s brother and Sara’s uncle, lived in the home and was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child.

GOOD. Fucking GOOD. Now throw them UNDER the jail for all time.

 

[Pavement1979]

That jury have done her justice. Her shoulder injuries are very strange. I didn't know about them. Bastards.

BB getting murder is the best news I've heard all year. Sentencing will be interesting.

We all remember your spunky, sparky bits of autonomy Sara. I'm so glad you showed those bastards your strength of spirit. Rest in peace.

Thanks to everyone on these threads too, keeping attention rightly on her and acknowledging her story.

 

[flap a doodle dandy]

I never said wearing the hijab was, the hijab has nothing to do with it.

Presumably the household however was Muslim and Sara would have been raised that way and likely had her own beliefs around it. Had she vocally argued I’m sure it would have been detailed in BB’s texts and they’d have referred to her as a non-believer as they referred to her having a Jinn.

from what I heard in court and have seen in the evidence I am not sure they would qualify as a Muslim household. He drank, gambled and nicked money from his employer. She called her kids the C bomb and called them Ho’s, committed fraud, and was in a relationship with a big time Heroin dealer. Aside from the horrific treatment of Sara they don’t strike me as good Muslim family values.

 

[HotesTilaire]

I actually don’t care, I’m just glad he’s feeling the pain, panic and fear he subjected Sara to in her short life. Hope someone brands him on his arse and pours boiling water on his ankles next.

 

[Pavement1979]

@HotesTilaire that Guardian article you linked to is mind boggling.

The children associated with US were reporting:

Kicks
Punches
Bruises
Being hit with a belt
Burns

The women were reporting the same plus coercive control.
The social workers were reporting feeling coercion themselves, I read previously US was intimidating to social workers. They were observing flinching and Sara refusing to go near US.

And a family court awards the man custody. This is what I experienced both personally and professionally with family court - misogyny is so deeply entrenched in that system. Go do a quick scan of every part of the children's safeguarding and justice system and it's a triangle with women at the bottom doing the grunt work and white, middle class, middle aged, educated, privileged men at the point making all the decisions. Crazy.

 

[Pavement1979]

Surrey County Council have commissioned an in depth review of her death to 'explore the lessons that could be learned'

How many times can agencies fail to protect our most vulnerable children before it's deemed 'too much'. Drives me nuts.

 

[moldwarp]

The timeline and BB's behaviour at the end isn't making sense to me Judges summing up:

'Sharif went to work from 6.25pm. At 7.15pm there was a series of calls from Batool to Sharif, followed by incoming calls from Batool’s sisters to Batool.

Sharif accepted he was called home by Batool who said Sara was sick and stopped at Co Op on route. There is further phone evidence that shows 30 voice calls from Batool trying to reach her family.

Message at 8.38pm from one of the children to his friend, saying his sister passed away and a 42-minute phone call from Batool’s sister to Sharif.

US said he was called home by Batool who said Sara was sick. He went upstairs and hit Sara with a pole because he thought she was pretending. Batool did not think Sara was pretending to be unwell. Sharif told the jury that Sara passed away with one or two minutes after entering the room and he did not let Batool call an ambulance.

Sharif agreed that when he came home Sara was very ill but no one had called a doctor.'

The evidence is that US beat Sara the night before, this caused some kind of catastrophic injury that made her unwell. He went to work, Sara became gravely ill, BB makes lots of calls to her sisters and US. BB's sister makes a long call to US. US then goes home, sees the gravely ill child, hits her with a pole and she dies within a minute or two? There's two things I'm not sure about:

1. Why is BB frantically calling her sisters and why are her sisters calling US and having a 42 minute phone call when US is at work?

2. Why would an adult returning home from work because his child is ill walk straight up to the room, ascertain this dying child is 'faking it', grab a metal pole, hit her in the stomach and then a minute later realise she's dead?

Make it make sense?!

I think Sara had a very bad head injury from the night before from the beating by US, no doubt, but maybe BB has hit her in the stomach and that was the straw that broke the camels back in terms of systemic physiological failure in Sara's body? Why else would BB frantically phoned her sisters and then her sisters phone US? Sara was on deaths door, 2 minutes from death and her Dad chose to hit her in the stomach with an iron pole? It just doesn't fit IMO. That poor kid - I hope the truth of her death comes out. They owe it to her memory - evil twats.

The evidence is that US beat Sara the night before, this caused some kind of catastrophic injury that made her unwell.

Yes, I personally think US caused the catastrophic head injury to Sara the night before. Catastrophic head injuries can take a good few hours or even a day to manifest, Michael Shumacher for example seemed fine after he hit his head and it's only hours later that he started showing symptoms of major brain injury. There was a female TV presenter (Natasha something?) who this happened to also. That's why when you have a concussion they want someone to observe you for 48 hours as it could be a serious head injury that isn't immediately apparent.

1. Why is BB frantically calling her sisters and why are her sisters calling US and having a 42 minute phone call when US is at work?

I think as @HotesTilaire says because Sara was showing alarming symptoms of catastrophic brain injury. Of course BB didn't think to call 999 because she's an inhuman monster. Much better obvs to call your sister and maybe get told to put the Koran on, obviously that's going to help with a catastrophic brain injury *massive eyeroll*

2. Why would an adult returning home from work because his child is ill walk straight up to the room, ascertain this dying child is 'faking it', grab a metal pole, hit her in the stomach and then a minute later realise she's dead?

@InTheDollsHouse has it bang on, cos he's a monster. I would imagine the poor child was comatose at this point so US hit her to wake her up, which is of course what any loving father would do. Cunt.

I think Sara had a very bad head injury from the night before from the beating by US, no doubt, but maybe BB has hit her in the stomach and that was the straw that broke the camels back in terms of systemic physiological failure in Sara's body?

I think she was probably on the way out at that point. Take enough torture and pain and the body shuts down, for example severe burn victims often die not of the burns per se but of stroke because the body just cannot handle such physical outrage and kind of just shorts out.

@Pavement1979 That poor kid - I hope the truth of her death comes out. They owe it to her memory - evil twats.

I couldn't agree more but also I think that we probably won't get any closer to the exact specifics of what killed her because even the medical experts were divided, although there does seem to be a consensus that the head injury was a major trigger for the final collapse.

They are ALL responsible and I fucking want them to really suffer. I've said this here before but I honestly do think that the death penalty is warranted in these rare circumstances where a child has been tortured to death. That's not an emotional response it's the result of many years thinking about this and I fully understand the legal and ethical reasons why the death penalty was abolished. I don't think it should be brought back for all murders, and not even for all cases of child abuse and murders. But in extreme cases like this one I think there is a lot of power in us saying as a society, "These people no longer deserve to enjoy the gift of human life, and we don't believe they deserve to keep living in human society." Because they aren't. And they don't.

 

[4FoxAche]

He didn't know what family dynamic he was arriving into. Absolutely fair.

When he arrived, what did he do? When he witnessed the torture and the beatings, what did he do? His DNA was on the cricket bat and the belt, again, what the fuck did he do?

He kept his mouth shut. He looked away. He helped clean up. He got on a plane.

Don't judge him for what he arrived into. Judge him for what he did once he arrived. Nothing.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

Just saw a newsflash saying that the father has had his neck slashed in jail !

That didn’t take long.

I hope he survives and has lasting injuries. He doesn’t deserve to die and be free of the fear of violence.

 

[moldwarp]

This bit from the Times article is heartbreaking:

While Batool was found guilty, she has maintained her innocence. A series of WhatsApp messages with her sister Qandeela Saboohi revealed during the trial that she would use make-up and sunglasses to hide how Sara was “beaten black” to the point of “vomiting”. In one instance, when a neighbour complimented Sara on her glasses over their shared fence the ten-year-old replied “my mummy likes to buy me lots of glasses”.

It also says that BB thought Sara was possessed by a Jinn. Someone very sharp and astute theorised this in the last thread - @HotesTilaire was it you?

 

[Lizzie Mintdrop]

Qandeela is a cunt. She wasn't a victim of US in any way and she did nothing to help a child who she knew was being beaten black and blue. I hope people who know her tell her what she is every day

 

[Mrsell]

They used religion to try and avoid scrutiny, by covering Sara up in a hijab in an attempt to hide her bruises. They didn't seem particularly religious, but they knew they could use it to benefit them, and people wouldn't question them.

Batool also told her sister that she thought Sara was possessed by a jinn, which also has a religious connection.

But that's exactly the point - it was a facade. He didn't beat her to death for any reason that was related to religion. He beat her because he's an evil bastard. The clothing was convenient to hide bruises only and had nothing specifically to do with religion other than being able to cover up the evidence of abuse. None of the rest of the family wore traditional clothing. The 'jinn' suggestion was literally just an excuse to give a reason for beating her - they clearly didn't actually believe that as he'd been beating women and children since before she was even born. This isn't so- called 'honour' killings or anything else it's straight up abuse and torture for abuse and torture's sake. It is not rooted in religion or culture.

 

[moldwarp]

They used religion to try and avoid scrutiny, by covering Sara up in a hijab in an attempt to hide her bruises. They didn't seem particularly religious, but they knew they could use it to benefit them, and people wouldn't question them.

Batool also told her sister that she thought Sara was possessed by a jinn, which also has a religious connection.

Well now I wonder if the jinn possession was more a figure of speech than a genuine belief. You know in the same way that we might say: "I don't know what possessed her to do x" or "I don't know what got into him". Those phrases hark back to our centures-ago belief in demonic possession, and we still use the phrases even though very few of us now believe in actual demonic possession.

I do absolutely believe though that fears of offending cultural sensitivites may have prevented teachers and SS from questioning Sara's sudden hijab adoption more closely. That monster Savannah Brockhill did similar when she told SS that Star's great grandparents were complaining due to anti-Traveller prejudice rather than out of genuine concern.

I have no issue with multiculturalism in general (hell I'm an immigrant, although I regard myself as British first and foremost) but one of the inevitable downside of multiculturalism is that it's harder for society in general to judge what's 'wrong' and what's 'normal' because we are specifically told it's potentially bigoted to pass such judgements. Whereas, my opinion only, but having agreed cultural norms and judging severe deviations from them, is the only way to keep a society cohesive and protect its most vulnerable members. And everyone should aim to assimilate into that agreed cultural norm to an extent.

Because otherwise, if everything is 'ok' and deviations are nobody's business and nobody's supposed to judge, that's how you get situations where neighbours heard Sara screaming and did nothing. Another Tattler (apologies can't recall who) suggested that we should deal with this issue in law by potentially punishing bystanders like the neighbours, whereas I think rather than using the law (which let's face it the police ain't got time to enforce our ever increasing burden of behavioural laws) we should be more confident in our society about saying, 'this is OK' or 'No, this is wrong'. Just imho.