Music-loving Sara Sharif would sing her favourite songs to escape her life of hell as she harboured dreams of winning The X-factor.
The “cheerful chatterbox” would “sing to anyone to listen” and showcased her dance moves to friends and teachers in the playground of St Mary’s Primary School in Byfleet, Surrey, until being removed by her killer parents four months before her death.
At home Sara would attempt to play a toy acoustic guitar and singalong to her favourite songs – Memories by Maroon 5 and Count on Me by Bruno Mars.
Yet despite her desperate desires to sing to the world she was shown no encouragement by her twisted father and stepmother, who would instead beat her into silence.
Despite her ongoing ordeals school head Jacquie Chambers remembered Sara as a bubbly and much-loved pupil with dreams of becoming a superstar like Taylor Swift.
She said: “Sara would write songs all of the time and she would sing to anyone who would listen. She came into my office, and I remember saying to her, ‘Sara, what do you want to do when you grow up?’. She said, ‘I want to be on X Factor. I want to win it’. And she stood by that.”
Ms Chambers said following the tragic death Sara’s classmates had created a buddy bench and a special award in her honour – the Sara Singing Award – which aims to unearth the school’s “singing stars”.
She added: “We’ve got a lovely music trophy to award that person at the end of the year, and that will be something we’ll do every year to remember her.”
