Sara Sharif

[mauvish]

Sara, aged 10, was found dead in the family home.

The police "want to speak" with Sara's father and his partner, who flew to Pakistan the day before Sara's body was found, and then phoned (don't know who) from there:

The call led officers to the house in Woking where they found the body of Sara who had sustained "multiple and extensive injuries", likely to have been caused over a sustained period of time.

Another child suffers at the hands of those who should care. I hope they get them back from Pakistan but I wonder what the chances of that are.

RIP, Sara.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-66563430

@Gilmorehill.. If staff have adequate training, clearly it's fallen very short here and they didn't get the seriousness of the bruising.

Tbh all school up and down the country get the same training but it's really important to have safeguarding ingrained in a school culture so people know what to look for and what to do if they have concerns. My most recent school was fabulous for this.

@Gilmorehill the literature maybe the same but how is it delivered? How is it made mandatory.

When a story comes out like this, there has to be a deterrent which is more than imprisonment. That poor child and her beautiful smile

Actually that is the role of the DSL. Who might be a teacher. At the time the bruises were spotted, Sara was questioned, her dad was questioned, inconsistent answers or refusal to answer, or anything that didn't satisfy them that it was accidental would then trigger a referral.

Schools cannot refer everything of concern to child services without investigation, they are expected to triage. But it wouldn't be a normal class teacher, it would be a member of the safeguarding team.

@TiramisuThief@TiramisuThief.
What would the dsl be hoping to gain from interviewing the perp?
They don't have investigation skills?. They would be alerting the perp they are onto them which is exactly what happened...

It should be immediate police, urgent now

I don't understand your point @Octaviusoctober

Child services won't take a referral from a school for bruising to a child. Children get bruises all the time. The school is expected to manage low level concerns themselves. They only know it's not a low level concern once they talk to the child and the parents.

Visible bruises could be bullying in school, fights with a sibling, falling off playground equipment, pulling stuff from a cupboard on top of themselves, there's a million innocent reasons

Senior staff in schools know very well that child services only take the most serious cases on. And the only way they can tell it is serious is by doing the leg work to speak to everyone involved.

@TiramisuThief.. I disagree.

1. no child being attacked, physically attacked by adults and tortured is going to say what's going on.
2. no perp will say " you got me, I've been making my child' stand in a corridor for 24 hours a day / forcing them to eat salt /punching them" etc.

The bruises speak for themselves as well as the shy behavior when asked.

Three sets of bruises should have triggered dsl and then ss and police I'd say.

Considering the poor little girls DNA was found on a whole host of objects (weapons) in the house and that she'd been repeatedly restrained at length, I find it very hard to believe the school didn't have serious concerns for this poor girl. The level of abuse is horrifying and it's shocking that this wasn't picked up on. We're not talking parents being a bit heavy handed and a kid having a few suspect bruises. This was repeated, violent abuse of the highest level.

I'm a designated safeguarding lead in a school. I have had to deal with bruising on children, disclosures of physical chastisement at home etc. We always call the local authority social care advice line and they always tell us to meet with the parents first, unless there is an immediate and obvious concern of danger to the child. If we speak to the family once and then have further concerns, we always do a social care referral. Due to social care workload, these are not always followed up in the way we hope but in cases of immediate concern we have had social workers visit the school the same day to investigate.

I can't tell you how hard it is to get Children's Social Care to agree a case.meets threshold for them to take it on. Also, schools need consent from parents to make referrals in all but the most serious of cases where they believe there is a genuine and immediate risk of harm. It is sad but true. Schools are in a very difficult position and yes, normal procedure would be speak to child and then speak to parent to see if stories are corroborated, again, unless you thought that doing so would cause an immediate risk of harm.

@lavenderlou and 3 lots of unexplained bruising in a short time wouldn't classify as urgent danger, what in your opinion would classify as urgent danger beyond the realms of talking to a parent

I already said that if we noticed unexplained bruising again after a conversation with the family we would make a social services referral, which by all accounts the school did.

Do you think it will make a difference for physical chastisement to becone illegal in England, like it is in Wales and Scotland?

It's just horrible, all three of them need to be locked away for a long time. For those only mentioning the dad, the girl had bite marks from the step-mum I believe. They were female marks and she refused to give an imprint.

@lavenderlou on saying that 3 bouts in a short amount of time coupled with pulling the scarf over should make it :immediate danger and police etc.

I can't imagine looking back at these cases what staff thinks is immediate danger.

If 3 lots of bruising isn't what on earth is??
This had been happening for 4 years one weekend she was attacked soon badly she couldn't walk.
Do you think earlier teachers missed opportunity as well.

I absolutely dread to thinks right now a child is in school on their 2nd or 3rd or 4th obvious attack and fhe teachers are still waiting to see if it's systemic and "waiting * whilst violence I'd ramping up and up and every momentum they are closer to an horrifying death.

3 lots of bruising should equal / police urgent

Especially bruising to the face. I have three very active, outdoorsy, rough-and-tumble boys, they often have bruises on their legs! But the occasions of bruising to the face would be incredibly rare, we've two incidents of a bang on the temple from one trampoline collision of two heads and one time coming off a scooter.. but that didn't really leave a bruise as such. I honestly can't think of a time when any of my DC have had bruises to their faces. So yes children do get brushes but repeated bruises to the face should never be ignored.. its not a part of the body that tends to get bruised by accident. Same with upper arms. Didn't school nurses used to checks on children in their underwear and vests, weight and height etc and would be able to see a good amount of the body at the same time.

If family court would have given Sara in custody to the mother, she would still be with us and a happy child. The system is broken.
we need to understand the background, a polish mother with a low paid job, not affording a good solicitor to help the case, also knowing that in Poland the mother more naturally get custody with some allowance from the father to support financially. But most of all when saying the husband is abusive, even more naturally she would have got custody. Here in the UK if a mother says that the father is abusive, the court thinks that the mother is trying to put the daughter against the father and gives the father full custody. Which is insane !!!
The mother also moved to the countryside and it would have been logistically easier, to go to school safely etc etc, also safer and cheaper for children.
The fact that she was allowed to be home schooled, besides the father full custody, made the situation worse.
The UK family court system is broken, Sara could still be with us and a happy child living in the countryside safely if the family court would have given the mother full custody.
Sometimes for someone with a low paid job, appealing the court decision can be even more challenging, for time and money, so Sara’s mum could not move forward in this.
There’s no evidence of drugs addiction in all this, so please focus on the real problem at the base, the UK family court rules.

I agree with this. The threshold is incredibly high. I'm always shocked where referrals are passed back to me (don't work for SS but in safeguarding role) as no further action needed. I know we've put a vital piece in the jigsaw but what if it's the last piece and nothing has been done?

And when the trial is over and sentences have been served, we will hear the usual " lessons need to be learned; this must never happen again".

Meanwhile we will all feel sick with the knowledge of the horrific abuse that little Sara endured at hands of those monsters.

So sad.

I have 2 adopted children. Like many other adopters, the children were left in awful circumstances way after social services got involved. Basically they only act decisively and remove children after a catastrophic event. Otherwise it is all a case of watch and wait. Parents are given chance after chance, every benefit of doubt.

In my girls' case the birth parents kept missing appointments with health visitor and social workers. They used info like this to help build the case to have the children removed and then adopted, but at the time it was just another record added to a growing file.

Thing is, so many kids are living in awful conditions and being hurt. Social services can't/ won't take them all into care.

You are right. The cases which come to light via the media, are just a fraction of the percentage of abused children, I am sure.

It's maddening when we get the " lessons need to be learnt" because they never are learnt! Not in the way that stops a child being murdered by their " parents" anyway.

Who bites anyone? I find this so hard to read.

Me too. Incomprehensible. Just the way they tortured her, the materials used and the pure evil and horror. Unbelievable.

This is interesting and scary law - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03q9n7f