Sara Sharif’s stepmother said ‘no comment’ when asked if she loved the girl

Sara Sharif’s stepmother replied “no comment” when asked by police whether she loved or cared about the 10-year-old, a newly released video has showed.

On Wednesday,  her father Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother Beinash Batool, 30 were found guilty of murdering the girl.

The trial at the Old Bailey heard that the child died after years of horrific abuse, including being burned, bitten and beaten.

After the verdicts, police released videos showing all three defendants being interviewed on September 14 2023, the day after they were arrested at Gatwick Airport after flying back from Pakistan.

In a 68-second clip, Batool replies “No comment” to seven questions from officers, including “Do you love Sara?”, “Did you care about her at all?”, “What did you see?” and “What happened to Sara?”.

At the start of the video Batool, wearing a black long-sleeved garment and smiling slightly, confirms her identity and responds “killing someone”, when asked what her understanding was of murder.

Taxi driver Sharif is seen in a separate clip providing a handwriting sample of the words “love you Sara, maybe I will be back before you finish the post-mortem”, almost the same words that were in a note found next to the girl’s body.

Other footage released by police shows the moment the three were arrested at Gatwick on September 13 last year.

An 11-second video shows police approaching the family, who are still sitting on the plane, in which Batool raises her hand and says “I think you’re looking for us”.

After the trial, police also released footage of Sara sitting on a black leather sofa, singing and playing guitar and dancing, in what appears to be a playground.

A post-mortem examination found Sara had more than 25 broken bones, from being hit repeatedly with a cricket bat, metal pole and mobile phone.

She had a broken hyoid bone in her neck from being throttled, human bite marks on her arm and thigh and burn marks on her buttocks and feet.