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The Children’s Commissioner has joined the chorus of anger after the murder of Sara Sharif at the hands of her abusive family, warning that there were similar cases of child abuse “out there”.
Dame Rachel de Souza said that the 10-year-old schoolgirl had been “let down” by social services, who closed her case six days after her primary school made a referral after teachers noticed bruises in March 2023.
She died at the hands of her father Urfan Sharif, 42, and her stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, on 8 August last year after a “campaign of abuse”, which saw her beaten with a cricket bat and metal pole, scalded with hot water and burnt with a domestic iron.
Speaking to Andrew Marr on LBC, Dame Rachel said: “Just thinking of that child’s battered tortured body in the last few hours of her life, I am filled with fury and I am deeply concerned.
“I think of the safety net that should have been around her. She was a child known to social services before her birth and that means she would be six times more likely than normal children to die due to abuse or neglect inflicted injuries than other children.
“She has been let down and I am not accepting any more from anyone ‘lessons will be learned’, or ‘we’re doing a review’. I need change and I need change for these children now. There are other Sara Sharifs out there and there are some very clear actions that need to be taken.”
Sara was beaten to death four years after taxi driver Sharif was awarded custody, despite accusations of abuse against him from multiple previous partners.
Jurors heard that Sharif created a “culture of violent discipline”, where assaults on Sara had “become completely routine, completely normalised”. By the end of her life, she had suffered over 70 injuries, including 25 fractures, a broken hyoid bone in her throat and a traumatic brain injury.
The court heard how the defendants had fled to Pakistan after Sara died at the family home in Woking, Surrey.
Sharif called police when he arrived in Islamabad and confessed he had beaten her up “too much”.
Officers went to his former home and found Sara’s broken and battered body in a bunk bed, with a confession note from Sharif on the pillow.
Despite the school’s referral after a teacher spoke to Batool about Sara’s bruises, her case was closed within days. The school was then told by her family that she would be homeschooled, where the abuse meted out against her is believed to have intensified.
“What seems to have happened is that they didn’t have accurate data to verify that it was her,” Dame Rachel said. “They didn’t know that she had been known to social services. We have to sort out now the data around children at risk.
“We absolutely have the capacity and I think most people in this country would think that education and social care in different areas of the country speak to each other with the data but they don’t2, and this is a massive failure in this case.”
Following Sharif and Batool’s guilty verdicts on Wednesday, Dame Rachel said the case had highlighted “profound weaknesses in our child protection system”.
She said: “There can be no doubt that Sara was failed in the starkest terms by the safety net of services around her.
“Even before she was born, she was known to social care – and yet she fell off their radar so entirely that by the time she died, she was invisible to them all.
“We can have no more reviews, no more strategies, no more debate. When we say ‘never again’, we have to mean it – let that be Sara’s legacy.”
She called for a raft of changes including “proper oversight” for children, like Sara, being home schooled.
Maria Neophytou, acting chief executive of the NSPCC, said it was an “absolutely shocking case” raising “crucial questions” about child protection.
She said: “It is disturbing that Urfan Sharif believed – and told police – that he did legally punish Sara for being naughty.
“Politicians at Westminster must move swiftly to abolish the defence of reasonable chastisement and give children the same protection from assault as adults.”
Rachael Wardell, from Surrey County Council, said that until an independent safeguarding review has concluded, a “complete picture cannot be understood or commented upon”.
The Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey, Lisa Townsend, welcomed the review, saying: “It is clear in this case that calculated attempts were made to ensure the sustained abuse of Sara happened out of plain sight.
“But there are undoubtedly questions that need answering on what could have been done to prevent her death.”
Rachael Wardell, executive director for children, families and lifelong learning at Surrey County Council, said: “Sara’s death is incredibly distressing and we share in the profound horror at the terrible details that have emerged during the trial. We cannot begin to comprehend the suffering that poor Sara endured at the hands of members of her family who should have loved, protected, and cared for her.
“The focus of the trial has been on the evidence needed to secure the convictions of those responsible for Sara’s death. This means that until the independent safeguarding review concludes, a complete picture cannot be understood or commented upon.
“What is clear from the evidence we’ve heard in court is that the perpetrators went to extreme lengths to conceal the truth from everyone.
“We are resolute in our commitment to protecting children, and we are determined to play a full and active part in the forthcoming review alongside partner agencies, to thoroughly understand the wider circumstances surrounding Sara’s tragic death.”
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