Sara Sharif told social worker ‘they don’t hit me’ four years before her murder

‘When people punch me, when mum slaps me and people who shout at me, it makes me really worried.’ Photograph: Surrey Police/AFP/Getty Images

Sara Sharif told a social worker she felt safe living with her father and stepmother because “they don’t hit me”, four years before she died from their brutal campaign of torture.

The schoolgirl’s haunting words are buried in hundreds of pages of private family court papers that were disclosed after an application by media organisations, including the Guardian.