Latest Sara Sharif murder trial: Stepmother regularly “screamed” and “lost her temper,” neighbor tells jury

Recalling her experience living above Sara Sharif's family, Rebecca Spencer said she heard Beinash Batool swearing at the children and using “not very nice words.”

When asked about the specific words, she replied: “Just nonsense and not words you would expect to hear with children.”

“I don’t want to define it, but in my head I’m thinking about fucking idiots.”

She remembered a garden party in the common areas attended by the Sharif family and where Sara took part in the games.

“Sara was a lovely girl, she took part in the games with everyone, she spent most of her time chatting with me rather than playing with the other children.”

Rebecca Spencer told jurors she heard occasional “cracks” coming from the apartment and once asked Beinash Batool if everything was OK.

“One time there was a fever. I said everything was fine here and they said, “Yes, yes,” and the door was slammed in my face. That was the stepmother.

“It had been a long time coming, I had just reached the end of my strength. “General constant screaming and crying and banging,” she said.

As she left the property, she warned the new tenant that they were a “nightmare family” because of the noise.

A neighbor has told the Old Bailey she saw Beinash Batool shouting at Sara while she lived among them.

“I heard the stepmother yelling at Sara,” Rebecca Spencer said.

When the prosecutor asked how she could tell it was Sara, she replied: “She was calling her name.”

She added that she also saw the 10-year-old, then about six years old, performing tasks such as removing items into the trash can.

During this time, Urfan Sharif worked as a taxi driver while Batool stayed at home.

A neighbor who lived above the Sharif family in a duplex apartment in West Byfleet in 2018 and 2019 told jurors she heard Beinash Batool “screaming” and a door “rattling”.

When Rebecca Spencer emerged from behind a screen, she said her first impression of the noise the family was making was “just crying and then door rattling and a lot of door slamming, stepmother screaming too.”

She described frequently hearing the sound of a door rattling at any time of the day, often after Batool had “lost his temper.”

“The family were never silent when it came to closing doors, but it almost seemed like they were locked in a bedroom, this constant door clatter. I’m trying to open it,” she said.

The trial of Urfan Sharif, Beinash Batool and Faisal Malik has resumed at the Old Bailey.

The jury will hear from Rebecca Spencer, a neighbor who lived next door to the family in West Byfleet.

Last week, jurors heard that neighbors heard “terrifyingly loud” smacking noises coming from the Sharif family home, followed by “stupid screams,” the court heard.

Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said Chloe Redwin, who moved into the neighboring property in Eden Grove in September 2020, said she heard screaming, followed by a woman shouting “shut up” and “go to your room, you fucker.” “ shouted. **** B******”.

Ms Redwin said she heard shouts and screams “at all hours of the day and night” but did not realize that this did not happen when the “house dad” was at home, he continued.

She said she greeted Sara's father, Urfan Sharif, “many times” and that she believed he was “aware of the noise his family was making because he occasionally apologized for it.”

The jury heard that other neighbors heard screaming, smacking and crying coming from their home from the time the Sharif family lived in West Byfleet, where they moved sometime between 2018 and 2019, and later in Woking, where they lived from April 2023 had.

The court was told neighbor Rebecca Spencer would hear “popping and rattling noises” which were “often accompanied by the sounds of a child crying or screaming, followed by complete silence.”

In a statement read out by the prosecution last week, she added: “On these occasions I can only describe the silence as a deadly silence and I cannot even imagine what happened to make the child crying or screaming immediately like that has become quiet.”

Ms Spencer also described banging noises coming from the Sharif's apartment, as if someone had been punched or punched, the court was told.

She said she thought about reporting it to social services but ultimately decided against it.

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

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

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In his testimony on Wednesday, forensic pathologist Dr. Nathaniel Cary that some of Sara's external injuries, including dozens of bruises, abrasions and burns, were the result of “repeated blunt trauma” and “blunt impact or firm pressure or both.”

He told the court that the little girl's body had been violated more than 71 times.

This included significant internal damage, including bleeding to her brain, multiple bruises to her lungs and multiple skeletal injuries, the jury heard.

Dr. Cary presented his findings from an autopsy Sarah He carried out the assault on August 15, 2023 and lasted about three hours.

Sara She is 1.37 meters tall and weighs 27 kilograms, both measurements being in the average range for a child of her age, but on the lower end, the court said.