Sara Sharif neighbours to give evidence after ‘gut-wrenching scream’ hears – latest

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Ten-year-old Sara Sharif died after an alleged “campaign of abuse” in the home she shared with her father, stepmother and uncle.

Taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of his daughter’s murder alongside Sara’s stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29.

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Giving evidence on Wednesday, forensic pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary said some of Sara’s external injuries, which included dozens of bruises, grazes and burns, were the result of “repetitive blunt trauma” and “blunt impact or solid pressure, or both.”

He told the court there were more than 71 injuries to the little girl’s body.

They included significant damage internally, including bleeding on her brain, multiple bruises on her lungs and multiple skeletal injuries, jurors heard.

Dr Cary presented his findings from a post-mortem examination of Sara’s body he carried out on August 15 2023 which took around three hours.

Sara had a height of 1.37 metres and a weight of 27 kilograms, with both measurements within the average bracket for a child her age but towards the lower end, the court heard.