Olga Domin clutched a faded photograph of her 10-year-old daughter, Sara, to her chest as she spoke the words that had been trapped inside her for weeks: “It’s a weight lifted off my shoulders.” Her voice trembled, cracking under the strain of grief and fragile relief, but her eyes – red-rimmed and hollow – burned with a mix of vindication and unending sorrow. For the first time since the nightmare began, Sara Sharif’s mother had broken her silence, reacting to the dramatic arrest of her ex-husband, Urfan Sharif, and his new wife, Beinash Batool, as they stepped off a flight at Gatwick Airport.
The couple, along with Sharif’s brother Faisal Malik, had been living in hiding in Pakistan since fleeing the UK just 24 hours after Sara’s battered body was discovered in their Woking family home on August 10. Now, after a tense international manhunt, they were in handcuffs, facing charges of murder and child cruelty that exposed a two-year reign of terror behind the suburban curtains of Hammond Road. Olga, 35 at the time and a Polish immigrant who had once dreamed of a new life in Britain, told The Sun in an exclusive interview: “I am very happy that the police have made arrests. It’s like a stone has been rolled away from my heart. But nothing can bring my Sara back.”
Sara Sharif was supposed to be entering Year 6, dreaming of becoming a doctor, sketching unicorns in her notebook, and begging for extra episodes of her favorite cartoons. Instead, the bright-eyed girl with the infectious giggle had endured unimaginable horrors: over 100 external injuries, including bite marks from human teeth, burns from a hot iron pressed into her flesh, scalds from boiling water, and fractures in her spine, collarbone, ribs, and even the fragile hyoid bone in her neck. A post-mortem painted a picture of systematic brutality – a cricket bat stained with her blood, a rolling pin smeared with her DNA, coils of rope used to bind her tiny frame. Prosecutors would later describe it as a “campaign of abuse,” where punishments for spilling milk or forgetting homework escalated into life-ending violence.
Olga’s story is one of love lost to manipulation and a family court system that, she believes, failed her daughter at every turn. She met Urfan Sharif in 2008 while working the late shift at a Burger King in Woking, where he was her manager. He was charming, ambitious – a Pakistani immigrant who had arrived in the UK seven years earlier with big promises and a disarming smile. They married in 2009, welcomed a son in 2010, and then Sara arrived on January 11, 2013, a bundle of joy that briefly papered over the cracks. But the fairy tale shattered quickly. Within a year, Sharif was arrested for assaulting Olga and an unspecified child. She later recounted to social services the nightmarish details: him tightening a belt around her neck until she gasped for air, locking her in a bedroom and confiscating her phone, even pouring oil over her in a failed attempt to set her ablaze – stopped only by the intervention of a cousin who burst into the room.
“I was terrified,” Olga recalled in a later Polish TV interview with TVN24, her accent thick with emotion. “He’d pretend everything was fine when others were around, but alone, he was a monster. Once, he locked me in for a whole day. The police came, and he just smiled and said the door was open all along.” Her mother, Sylwia Kurz, watched from afar in Poland, heartbroken but paralyzed by fear. “I knew she was being abused,” Kurz admitted. “But Olga begged me not to confront him. She said it would only make him hit her harder.”
The couple separated in 2015, divorcing amid a bitter custody battle. Sara and her brother initially stayed with Olga, but Sharif fought tooth and nail for full custody. In a move that would haunt Olga forever, a coerced video surfaced: young Sara, tear-streaked and trembling, claiming her mother had hit her. It was enough for the family courts to award Sharif primary care in 2019, with Olga relegated to supervised visits – chaperoned, humiliatingly, by Sharif’s new bride, Beinash Batool, whom he had eloped with in 2015 after disowning her own family for the “dishonor.”
Batool, 12 years Sharif’s junior and from a conservative Pakistani background, became the enforcer in a home where “discipline” twisted into sadism. Olga’s visits dwindled; Batool eventually barred her altogether, citing “tensions.” “I fought so hard,” Olga said, her hands shaking as she described pleading with social services. “I told them about the abuse, the arrests, everything. But they said it was ‘in the past.’ How could they not see? Sara was my baby – she loved drawing, dancing, hugging me tight. The last time I saw her, she whispered, ‘Mummy, don’t let go.’”
The arrests at Gatwick came like a thunderclap after weeks of agony for Olga. On September 13, 2023, at 7:45 p.m., plainclothes officers swooped as the trio disembarked from a Dubai flight, their faces gaunt from evasion. Sharif, 41, Batool, 29, and Malik, 28, were bundled into vans amid flashing cameras. A fourth arrest – a family friend – followed days later. Olga, watching the news in her modest Slough flat, collapsed into sobs. “I’ve waited for this since they found her,” she told reporters outside her home, Sara’s photo clutched like a talisman. “It’s a weight lifted, yes – but the hole in my chest? That stays forever.”
In the interview with The Sun, Olga poured out years of suppressed rage. She described Sharif as a “great manipulator,” echoing her stepmother’s comparison to a notorious Polish con artist who preyed on vulnerable women. “He charmed my family during visits to Poland. My father called him the perfect son-in-law at first. But it was all lies. He isolated me, controlled everything. And now, look what he’s done to our girl.” She alleged that social services had flagged concerns about Sara’s care within a week of her birth – premature and jaundiced, she spent her first days in neonatal intensive care. Yet, despite three sets of family court proceedings and warnings dating back to 2010, no one intervened decisively. “They knew he was violent,” Olga fumed. “Arrested for assaulting me, threats to burn me alive – and still, they handed her over.”
The case has ignited a firestorm in the UK, with child protection advocates decrying a “catastrophic failure.” A later independent review would slam Surrey County Council for “overlooking” Sharif’s domestic abuse history, acting “too little, too late.” Protesters gathered outside the Old Bailey during the 2024 trial, chanting “Justice for Sara” and holding signs reading “No More Excuses: Protect the Children.” Olga became a reluctant symbol, her pleas amplified in media blitzes. By December 2024, when Sharif and Batool were convicted of murder – Sharif finally admitting in court, “I accept every single thing” while claiming he “didn’t want to hurt her” – Olga’s relief was tempered by fury. “He’s a monster who should die in jail,” she told The Sun. “Not human to do this to your own child.”
In a poignant statement read outside court, Olga paid tribute to the daughter she barely recognized at the morgue, dressed in bloodied Mickey Mouse pajamas. “My dear Sara, I ask God to please take care of my little girl. She was taken too soon. She was beautiful, full of life, and she will always be in our hearts.” Her son, now 13 and living with relatives, clings to memories of his sister’s laughter. Olga, who battled suicidal thoughts after losing custody, has since channeled her grief into advocacy, pushing for reforms: mandatory abuse histories in custody decisions, unannounced home checks, and zero tolerance for “cultural sensitivities” that blind officials to red flags.
As sentencing loomed – Sharif and Batool facing life terms, Malik lesser charges – Olga stood taller, Sara’s photo now framed on her mantel. “The arrests lifted the weight,” she reflected. “But every night, I see her face, hear her voice. She deserved to dance, to dream, to live. For her, I’ll keep fighting.”
Sara Sharif’s story isn’t just a tragedy; it’s a siren call to a system that too often whispers when it should scream. In Olga’s words, etched in a mother’s unbreakable resolve: “No child should ever suffer like this. Not on my watch – or anyone’s.”
