Sara Sharif's Killer Attacked; Two Inmates Charged
Sara Sharif's Killer Attacked; Two Inmates Charged
The News
Two prisoners have been charged with the attempted murder of Urfan Sharif — the father convicted of killing his 10-year-old daughter, Sara — over an attack inside London's HMP Belmarsh.
The Crown Prosecution Service named the accused as Steven Sansom, 47, and Adam Watson, 39. Both face attempted murder plus additional offences tied to the same incident, including a section 18 wounding charge.
Sharif suffered cuts to his neck and face. His injuries were described as non-life-threatening.
Timeline
Urfan Sharif is convicted of murdering his daughter Sara, 10. He is ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years. Her stepmother, Beinash Batool, receives a minimum term of 33 years.
Sharif, 43, is attacked in his cell at HMP Belmarsh. The Sun and the Daily Mail, citing prison accounts, report that the weapon was the jagged lid of a tuna tin and that his neck and face were sliced open. Those accounts are unverified and have not been established in court.
The CPS announces that Sansom and Watson have been charged over the attack.
Reactions
Daren Streeter, a Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor at the CPS, warned that criminal proceedings are now active and that reporting on the case risks prejudicing a fair trial.
Coverage across British outlets — the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent, the Daily Mail and The Sun — agrees on the charges, the names and the ages. The outlets differ mainly in how prominently they run the unattributed prison-source descriptions of how violent the attack was.
What's Next
Sansom and Watson are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on August 26 for a first hearing.
Two questions hang over the case: how two inmates got into Sharif's cell with a makeshift weapon, and how a court will seat a jury given the saturation coverage of Sara Sharif's murder.
More
Sara Sharif's death became one of Britain's most closely followed child-killing cases. Her father's conviction in December 2024 carried one of the longest minimum terms handed down in a domestic child murder in recent years. The new charges turn a prison assault into a separate criminal proceeding with its own trial — one that will be tried on its own facts, not on what Sharif did to his daughter.
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