A series of failures to protect 10-year-old Sara Sharif from her abusive father and stepmother have shown that her death was avoidable and preventable, the Children’s Commissioner and Education Secretary said.
A lengthy review concluded there had been multiple missed opportunities to save Sara from harm and that she was “failed by the safeguarding system”.
The report, published on Thursday, said Sara’s father Urfan Sharif’s domestic abuse had been overlooked and underestimated, with even safeguarding professionals appearing to have been “groomed and manipulated” by him over the years.
Sara was found dead in a bunk-bed at the family home in Woking, Surrey, in August 2023, having suffered what was described as “horrific abuse” at the hands of Sharif and her stepmother, Beinash Batool.
Sharif and Batool were jailed for life with minimum terms of 40 years and 33 years respectively in December last year, after being found guilty of her murder.
Sara’s uncle, Faisal Malik, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death and jailed for 16 years.
Their trial heard how Sharif had repeated contact with Surrey social services before he was charged with murdering his daughter.
The review into the handling of Sara’s care by various different services including police, health, social care and education, said she had been “a victim of domestic abuse from birth onwards”.
While she was described as a “beautiful little girl, full of personality with a lovely smile”, her “reality was day-to-day abuse which became normalised”, persuaded by her father and stepmother “that she deserved the treatment being meted out to her”, the report said.
Known as a local child safeguarding practice review, the report described the little girl’s family life as “complicated” and stated that those convicted over her death were “ultimately responsible”.
But the 62-page review, published on Thursday, said there were “many points at which different action could, and we suggest, should, have been taken”, that there had been a “great deal of information” available to various authorities during her lifetime, and that Sara “was not protected from abuse and torture”.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the review “rightly highlights the glaring failures and missed opportunities across all agencies which led to Sara’s death”, adding that the “appalling tragedy” both “could – and should – have been avoided”.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the case was “all the more heartbreaking” because of the “serious failings that contributed to her death” and England’s children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said Sara’s murder was “preventable”.
Among the details which emerged from the safeguarding review, was that a council worker had paid a visit to a wrong address for Sara on August 7, just a day before she was whacked in the stomach by Sharif with a metal pole.
She had been taken out of school by her father four months earlier in April and had “effectively disappeared from view”, with his trial hearing there had been a period of escalating violence against her in the meantime.
The review stated that an old home address for Sara remaining on the digital system meant the visit was to the wrong location on August 7 and the next was scheduled for the following month but that Sara died on August 9.
Sharif fled to Pakistan with Batool, Malik and Sara’s siblings that day and her body was discovered by officers on August 10 when he called police to say he had beaten her “too much”.
Had Surrey Council’s policy on home education of offering a home visit within 10 days been followed, and the child seen, “it is likely that the abuse of Sara would have come to light, or (her) father’s refusal to co-operate would have undoubtably raised a safeguarding alert”, the review said.
Council chief executive Terence Herbert said it was “devastating that the information (on the address) was incorrectly inputted”.
It was the latest in a long line of missed opportunities.
The seriousness and significance of Urfan Sharif’s domestic abuse was “overlooked, not acted on and underestimated by almost all professionals” involved with Sara and her family, the report said.
Sara was already on the radar of child services even before she was born, and family court hearings followed, with the council beginning proceedings to have her taken into care soon after her birth.
In her short life, she moved from the care of her parents, to living with her mother, Olga, and having only supervised contact with her father after his domestic abuse.
But, in 2019, after Sharif alleged Sara had been abused in her birth mother’s care, she was placed with her father and stepmother – a duo the review described as a “lethal combination” who “should never have been trusted” to look after her.
Text messages between Batool and her sisters, discovered during the police investigation, showed Sara had begun being assaulted by her father “soon after she moved in with him”.
The report said the “overall process” of court proceedings, when it was agreed Sara should live with her father and stepmother, had not maintained “sufficient focus” on Sara’s needs, cultural heritage and the ability of Sharif and Batool “to provide safe care”.
It stated there were multiple occasions throughout Sara’s life when “more robust safeguarding processes were needed to properly investigate the possibility that she was experiencing significant harm”.
These included a two-day school absence in March 2023, five months before her death after which she returned “quiet and coy” and with bruising to her cheek, eye and chin.
While Sara’s school made a referral to social services, the case was closed within days, without police being contacted.
Sharif had lied to a social worker saying Sara had lots of marks because of machinery she was hooked up to when born prematurely, information the review said was false.
Surrey children’s services had failed to “identify that Sara was at risk of being abused by her father, stepmother and uncle”; “expected robust safeguarding processes were not followed”; and the child’s “‘voice’ expressed through her change in demeanour was not heard”; the review said.
Sara had not not spoken of the abuse she was experiencing, it added, instead appearing “cheerful and loyal to her father, whilst he continually groomed and manipulated her, and the professionals who could have helped her”.
Sara had begun to wear the hijab in 2021, aged eight, which the review said hid bruising and injuries to her face and head in the later period of her life.
It said while the school had shown “appropriate curiosity”, there was no evidence in the children’s services or health records that race, culture, religion or heritage were “properly considered”, and expert advice since obtained from the local Muslim community suggested it would have been “highly unusual” for such a young child to decide to wear it when other family members did not.
The review concluded that, despite information available across the system, “opportunities were lost to join up all the dots and recognise the dangers faced by Sara once she moved in with her father and stepmother”.
Surrey police said this was “one of the most shocking and tragic cases we have ever investigated” and that the force “will work with the partnership to help implement its recommendations and safeguard our children and young people as effectively as possible”.
Downing Street said the Government is “acting to help ensure no child is left invisible to the services designed to protect them and we will, of course, consider this report closely and implement the recommendations fully”.
