A damning safeguarding review has exposed how 10-year-old Sara Sharif was failed by multiple agencies before being tortured and killed by her father and stepmother in August 2023, despite numerous opportunities to intervene.
The Crime
Sara Sharif endured horrific abuse at the hands of her father, Urfan Sharif, 43, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, suffering more than 100 injuries in what a judge described as the worst crime he had ever seen. The young girl was tied up, hooded with a plastic bag sealed with parcel tape, beaten with a cricket bat, metal pole and rolling pin, strangled until her neck broke, burned with an iron, and bitten.
After Sara’s death, Sharif and Batool fled to Pakistan before Sharif called emergency services to confess, believing he had escaped justice. Both were extradited, tried at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2024.
A History of Violence Ignored
The Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership review reveals that Sharif had a 16-year history of domestic violence that was consistently overlooked by authorities. Even before Sara was born, he had been accused of attacking two children and three women, including Sara’s mother, Olga Domin.
His violent past included holding a woman at knifepoint, choking another with a belt, and imprisoning a girlfriend for five days. Despite these allegations, he was never charged with any offense.
In 2016, Sharif was ordered to attend a domestic violence perpetrator program where he admitted to extensive abuse. However, he attended only eight of 26 sessions, and experts found insufficient evidence of changed behavior. This critical information was lost within the system when a social worker failed to complete proper analysis.
The Fatal Custody Decision
In 2019, a family court awarded Sharif custody based on what the review describes as a flawed report by an inexperienced social worker. The report contained critical gaps about Sharif’s history, compiled under pressure to meet tight deadlines.
Sara’s Polish mother was portrayed as “the problem,” and her voice was marginalized due to the lack of an interpreter. The review notes that extensive information about the risks Sharif posed was available across various systems, but professionals failed to “join the dots.”
The torture began just days after this custody decision and continued until Sara’s death four years later.
Warning Signs Missed
The review identified at least four missed opportunities to save Sara after she was placed in her father’s care:
2021: Sara began wearing a hijab to conceal her bruises—unusual since no other family member wore one. Social workers failed to question this despite it being a significant change.
June 2022: Teachers noticed bruises on Sara, but she would pull down her hijab and dismiss injuries as accidents. The school had no access to Sharif’s history of violence. Days later, he withdrew her from school, falsely claiming she had been bullied, and began homeschooling her.
March 2023: Sara returned to school with three facial bruises, including a golf-ball-sized injury to her cheek. The headteacher contacted social services, but after what the review called a “superficial analysis,” the case was closed within six days without police involvement. Sharif had blamed another child and claimed Sara had birth injuries.
April-August 2023: Sara was withdrawn from school for homeschooling on April 17 and never seen alive outside the home again. A mandatory home education visit was delayed due to staff sickness and annual leave. When officials finally attempted a visit on August 7, they went to the wrong address. Sara was killed two days later.
Systemic Failures
The review identified multiple systemic problems that contributed to Sara’s death:
Overworked staff: Social workers faced relentless pressure to process seven cases daily, leaving no time for thorough investigation. The focus on speed and meeting timescales meant critical risks were missed.
Cultural sensitivities misapplied: Professionals were reluctant to question Sara’s sudden hijab use for fear of causing offense. An occupational therapist who visited the home noted Sara was the only family member wearing a hijab but didn’t raise concerns, later reflecting she may have been “reticent to talk about it for fear of causing offence.”
Neighbors’ silence: Neighbors frequently heard Sara’s screams but didn’t report them, fearing accusations of racism—a reluctance the review described as “white fragility.”
Information silos: Schools believed they could face trouble for sharing information due to GDPR concerns, preventing crucial data from being exchanged.
Failure to consider context: Professionals didn’t examine why a Pakistani father was singling out his dual-heritage daughter for abuse, missing important cultural considerations.
Recommendations for Change
The review has called for new legal powers enabling professionals to conduct mandatory visits to homeschooled children. While acknowledging parents’ rights to homeschool, officials emphasized that Sara’s case demonstrates the need for better safeguards.
Key recommendations include:
- Social workers must maintain capacity to “think the unthinkable”
- Better information sharing between agencies
- Improved oversight of homeschooled children
- More thorough background checks in custody cases
- Adequate resources to prevent rushed assessments
Accountability
Despite the catalogue of failures, the review concludes that no individual should be dismissed, stating Sara’s death was not caused by “one specific malfunction” but rather an accumulation of decisions and actions over time. The review emphasizes that “the blame for these killings lies with the perpetrators.”
Terence Herbert, Chief Executive of Surrey County Council, said: “We are deeply sorry for the findings in the report related to us as a local authority. We have already taken robust action to address those relating to Surrey County Council, and that work will continue with every recommendation implemented in full.”
The review concludes: “If Sara had been seen, it is likely that the abuse would have come to light. There were numerous times before Sara was born and throughout her life that the seriousness and significance of Father as a serial perpetrator of domestic abuse was overlooked, not acted on and underestimated by almost all professionals who became involved with Sara and her family.”
