A British court handed a life sentence to a mother who beat her seven-year-old son to death and burned his body after he failed to memorize passages from the Qu'ran.

Sara Ege, 33, was convicted of murder last month after a bizarre series of confessions and retractions in which she first claimed her son Yaseen was killed in a fire at the family's Cardiff, Wales, home in July 2010, the Daily Mail reports.

She later admitted to violently beating her son, watching his final moments as he continued to recite from the Qu'ran, then deciding to destroy the evidence of her crime by setting a fire, the report said.

After recanting that admission, she variously claimed the boy was killed by her husband and that evil spirits had egged her on. According to the BBC, the parents had wanted the boy to become a hafiz - someone who memorizes the Qu'ran.

Ege will have to serve a minimum of 17 years behind bars.