Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Sara Sharif murder: Timeline of hunt for family

Sara Sharif was found dead in bed at her family's home in Woking, southern England, in August 2023.

Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik
Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik were arrested earlier this month following their return to the UK from Pakistan. (Image credit: Surrey Police)
Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik were arrested earlier this month following their return to the UK from Pakistan. (Image credit: Surrey Police)

THE discovery of 10-year-old Sara Sharif's body at her home in southern England triggered an international investigation after her father, uncle and stepmother flew to Pakistan.

The trio returned to the UK in September 2023.


August 9, 2023: Sara's father Urfan Sharif, a 41-year-old taxi driver who moved to the UK from Pakistan in 2001, travels from his family's home near Woking, southern England, to Islamabad.

He flies with his partner Beinash Batool, 29, brother Faisal Malik, 28, and his five children.

August 10: Urfan Sharif calls Surrey Police at around 2:50 am UK time (0150 GMT) and officers visit the family's semi-detached home. They find Sara's body and a murder investigation is launched, sparking an international manhunt.

August 15: A post-mortem examination is unable to establish the cause of death but reveals Sara had sustained "multiple and extensive" injuries likely to have been inflicted over a "sustained and extended" period of time.

Sara's mother Olga tells The Sun newspaper that her life "will never be the same again".

August 18: Surrey Police say they would like to speak to Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik over the death.

UK police talk with authorities in Pakistan, with which the UK has no formal extradition treaty, about trying to find and question them.

August 19: Pakistani police in the eastern province of Punjab seek to arrest Sharif, whose family home is believed to be in the city of Jhelum.

August 24: A Pakistani court rules that police cannot detain relatives of Urfan Sharif after police quiz two of his brothers over his whereabouts.

Police say they had been instructed by Interpol to question the family and that they were "close to locating" the trio.

August 29: A coroner's inquest opens but is told the precise cause of Sara's death is "not yet ascertained" but is likely to be "unnatural".

September 5: Urfan Sharif's father Muhammad Sharif tells the BBC in Pakistan that he had seen his son, who maintains Sara's death was "an accident".

September 6: Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool appear in public for the first time, sending broadcasters a video in which they say they are "willing to co-operate with the UK authorities and fight our case in court".

September 11: Pakistani police raid the home of Muhammad Sharif and remove Urfan Sharif's five children.

They are sent temporarily to a government childcare facility in Pakistan.

September 13: Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik land at London's Gatwick Airport and are arrested immediately after leaving the plane, at around 7:45 pm, on suspicion of murder.

September 15: In the early hours, Surrey Police announce that state prosecutors had authorised murder charges against the trio. They were also charged with causing or allowing the death of a child.

They appear in court in the southern town of Guildford. All three are remanded in custody.

More For You

Wolverhampton pharmacist Sundip Gill jailed for Covid grant fraud

Gill made “false representations” and supplied “fake quotations” to support funding applications

Representative image (iStock)

Wolverhampton pharmacist Sundip Gill jailed for Covid grant fraud

Dineshwori Longjam

Sundip Gill, a registered pharmacist from Wolverhampton, has been sentenced to imprisonment after being found guilty of fraud related to Covid-19 grant applications.

According to the City of Wolverhampton Council, Gill made “false representations” and supplied “fake quotations” to support funding applications. Gill is the director of two pharmaceutical companies, Sync Chem Ltd and Collateral Ltd, and operates four pharmacy businesses in Wolverhampton—Collateral, Your Pharmacy First, Low Hill Pharmacy, and Fallings Park Pharmacy.

Keep ReadingShow less
Leicester council tax rise to hit residents in April

Council leaders hope a government funding review will ease budget strain

Leicester council tax rise to hit residents in April

Hannah Richardson

LEICESTER residents will see a hike in their bills from the start of April after the city council last Wednesday (19) agreed a 4.99 per cent increase in council tax, the highest possible rise.

It means band B properties in the city will pay an additional £1.44 per week for city council services, raising around £3 million in additional funding for the authority. Elected members also agreed a 2.7 per cent jump in rents for council tenants, which will raise an additional £2.63m.

Keep ReadingShow less
LEAD Amit 1 INSET Rishi Sunak GettyImages 1258681655
Rishi Sunak

Sunak backs prostate cancer screening

FORMER prime minister Rishi Sunak has been named an ambassador for Prostate Cancer Research, supporting its campaign for a national screening programme for men at high risk of the disease.

The announcement follows Sunak’s visit to Oxford BioDynamics last week, where he learned about the EpiSwitch PSE blood test, which can detect prostate cancer with 94 per cent accuracy. This is seen as a major improvement over the commonly used PSA test.

Keep ReadingShow less
Lisa Nandy unveils £270m funding to make arts more accessible

Lisa Nandy

Lisa Nandy unveils £270m funding to make arts more accessible

CULTURE secretary Lisa Nandy has unveiled a £270 million investment backed ‘Arts Everywhere’ Fund to revitalise the UK’s “crumbling” arts and culture infrastructure after the Covid pandemic.

In a lecture last Thursday (20) at Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, Nandy said the new fund was needed to meet the vision of making the arts accessible to all and mentioned British Asian filmmaker Gurinder Chadha’s 2002 boxoffice hit Bend Like Beckham to illustrate the point.

Keep ReadingShow less
His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj, the spiritual leader of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha

BAPS makes education commitment as it buys school site in south London

Harrison Galliven

THE John Whitgift Foundation has completed a £7.5 million sale of its Old Palace pre-school and primary school site to BAPS, which has promised to invest in the south Croydon School after it closed its doors last summer, writes .

The prep and primary school on south Croydon’s Melville Avenue closed last July after serving many years as a high-performing girls’ school.

Keep ReadingShow less