Jesus Christ will this never end [Content warning: concerns child abuse]

[Hotdogsarevile]

Sorry for the daily mail link but Jesus fucking Christ this is beyond awful

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13958665/sara-sharif-burned-tied-bite-marks-murder-trial.html

when will this ever end?

No animal behaves like this to its young.

I don’t understand why the mother wasn’t also found guilty of murder. I thought if you were present and complicit in a murder you were also guilty in the eyes of the law. And it doesn’t sound as though she was coerced, so that isn’t a defence that holds water. She is (allegedly) a human being who watched as a thug brutalised another human being, who also happened to be her defenceless two year old child, hell yes she is guilty of murder, as much as he is.

Apparently she was easily led. Well that’s OK then. Pushing around a dead child. Carrying on as though nothing was wrong.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE. WHY DO WE MAKE EXCUSES AFTER EXCUSE FOR THESE SCUM? ANOTHER WOMAN WHO PUTS HER WANTS AND NEEDS AHEAD OF THEIR CHILDREN.

It's a council house. They were lucky to get it. I'd love a house and garden like that on a nice road.

Ah OK I stand corrected.

Unfortunately yes. The humiliation and depravity is entirely yours, not those who do it to you. You seek forgiveness for what others are doing.
Unlke@GiveMeSpanakopita I wasn't ever a sunny and happy child. I was seen as dirty, morose, with an unpleasant look, so at school nothing about me was seen as any different from one day to the next.
I was punished at school for what was with hindsight obviously parental neglect, then battered at home for being punished at school and bringing attention to myself. Attention on parent was doubly my fault.

Children continue to function because children tend to live in the now. Eventually I simply had a go go at ending my life. I hadn't reached double figures and my understanding of physics was a child's imagination.
I did myself a lot of damage but my terror of having been found to have tried and failed, was greater than any desire for help. I was left staggering around with very blood shot eyes, and spent weeks having stinging eye drops to treat non existent infection and my dirtiness assumed for why it wouldn't clear up.
Later xrays revealed I'd walked around with a fractured skull. Children are resilient, until the day they aren't.
It's actually part of what leads batterers to batter more.

The need to protect my parent was bred into me. I knew terrible things had been done to them too. I understood my place in the hierarchy, how much of a problem I was, and simply never questioned protecting them. It was my responsibility, and no matter how awful what was happening was, I accepted the idea that I was responsible for it all, would never be believed, the shame would be all mine, and to betray my parent was a much worse crime than anything, including death, that could happen to me. As a child your value is assigned by adults.
I wasn't stupid, it's just the nature of children. Sara was just a child reacting as a child does.

@greenday16B Re the neighbors, as someone now publicly labelled a grass and harassed and harangued publicly on the street for trying to protect my neighbors visibly abused children, none of my other 'niace' neighbors I'm on speaking terms with, offer me any gestures of support. I am now treated as part of the problem.

Battered children are 'other' and anyone who gets involved becomes 'other' too.

They could just stop and be silent witnesses when I'm being threatened, stand beside me, show strength in numbers, but they turn away and cross the road. 'We don't like to get involved.' The implication being that someone who tried to end the violence, WANTS to be involved in these shit situations. I bet some are on here or similar, saying 'what can be done?' from a safe distance.

You must pretend not to see, hear or be aware. It is the middle class code that signifies 'we are not like them, so we are not aware of things that would be offensive to decent people.' I have broken the code.

Even the police see protecting or backing up those who say anything as not part of their remit. They demand information, then tell you your brave, because they know they'll be leaving you on your own with the repercussions.
People only come together over abuse once a child is dead.

So, no, it will never end, not enough people are prepared to suffer even mild discomfort around making it unacceptable, let alone do anything active about it, or want it to enough. This country has a problem acknowledging it's own inaction.

@Elleherd sorry but what gestures of support do you wish for? I live in terrace housing, very very close to other people. The odd one might smie and nod, that's as far as it goes.

Very eloquently worded.....awful. The suffering is existential, and immense.

So do I. We all hear the violence, both to the children, and the threats to those trying to stop it.
Very simply, if one of your nod and smile neighbors is being screamed at and threatened with snitches get stitches that they're a grass for reporting child abuse, don't cross the road or just walk past.
Stop. Witness it. Make it clear others are hearing these threats, and preferably don't agree with it, but just the former will do.
Better still film whats happening. Abusers hate evidence, they rely on divide and separate, no one saying anything. Consider calling the police if it's severe.
Don't isolate and stop smiling and nodding to the neighbor that's being punished for reporting abuse. Don't decide trying to protect a child is their problem to carry alone.

Solidarity gives people under pressure courage. Isolation makes them think staying silent is the right thing to do.

Edited to say Sara's neighbors didn't try to help Sara because we all know 'interfering' in others lives comes at a price. Why aren't we backing each other up to say abusing children is intolerable to the majority and it is right to report it and we will not allow the repercussions to go unchallenged?

One of the most awful things about this case. Not the first time something like this has happened. The state has been complicit in handing over a child to a horrific abuser. This could have been prevented, as usual.

I would say the state, the deliberate dismantling of support networks ( which weren't flawless) and just plain selfish attitudes by the neighbours.

Why aren't we backing each other up to say abusing children is intolerable to the majority and it is right to report it and we will not allow the repercussions to go unchallenged?

I once saw a young woman obviously on drugs threatening suicide. Loads of people just shrugged and carried on with their lockdown canal side walk. I intervened.

It’s not the neighbours in the dock here. It’s this scummy blended family who are all guilty of what has happened. So many times on threads people are telling others to keep their beak out, offer help to the stressed parent who is shouting and swearing at their child.

And when this happens we blame the neighbours for not stepping in. In this case it’s nothing to do with a support network..do you honestly think this family would engage with them.

Of course the psychopaths who did this are in the dock.

I do "blame " the neighbours. I blame society for becoming so heartless.

James Bolger sticks in my mind. Better to say something and be called an interfering pest than stay silent.

It’s James Bulger and totally different circumstances.

Concerned adults did stop and question the two older boys when little James was obviously distressed but they were told it was their brother and they were taking him home. Those people gave evidence and were very distressed.

The problem with this country these days is if they had stopped those boys and taken them to a police station they could have been charged with kidnap and abuse themselves. No mobile phones then and probably no police station nearby. A case such as this had never happened before.

i know if I heard a child being beaten next door I’d do something - I’ve done it with animal abuse. However, what would happen is probably very little. Ring the police, they say contact SS. Ring them and it takes a while before they do anything and when they do visit chances are they just believe the abuser.

Poor little Arthur’s family on both sides were reporting and ringing police and they still carried on torturing him. Nothing to see here. It’s appalling.

I apologise for the spelling error. A simple mistake.
I was trying to say that tragedy stuck in my mind and I would intervene if I felt something was off. Since then, the world has moved on and people are more wrapped up in their phones and so on.
There's no way I could have lived next door to those sounds and left it alone. Services are poor and poorly resourced but they are still there.

They’ve been found guilty of murder and the uncle guilty of allowing.

I hope they receive very long sentences.

RIP Sara.

They should be given life meaning life.
The father and step mother are evil, not fit to live in a civilised society.
It's not been made clear how much the uncle was involved in Sara's abuse and murder, rightly he has been found guilty of causing or allowing her death.

Turns out she was taken into foster care twice before she was 6.

They just had a snippet from a neighbour who said she seemed sad but nothing untoward

I knew it would all come out after they had been found guilty - this makes me feel sick - with this list of allegations but amazingly no charges, how on earth have they got away with it for so long.

Poor Sara paid with her life to protect others from their evil actions.

• Sharif had been accused of attacking three women and two children including a one-month-old baby, who suffered a similar catalogue of bruises, burns and bites, but he was never charged with any offence.
• After arriving in the UK on a student visa, the taxi driver preyed on vulnerable women as young as 17 whom he attempted to wed in a bid to get a UK passport
• He held one woman at knifepoint, choked another with a belt and imprisoned one girlfriend for five days while he sent her passport off for a marriage application in a bid to secure residency in the UK.
• In a sickening twist, Sharif managed to escape justice for so long by claiming he was the real victim, grooming children to cover for him including a 14-year-old who was due to testify that he was innocent before Sharif's dramatic confession to Sara's killing midway through the trial.
• His wife Batool is a scheming thief and liar who pretended she had twins with another man and already had two secret husbands when she wed Sharif.
• Sharif's family shielded him in Pakistan after the killing, lying about seeing Sara on video happily having dinner with her family on the night she died
• Police in Pakistan brought false charges against Sharif's family to force him to return to the UK

If people think that nice middle class men and women don’t do these things then you are wrong. They do. Even nice “right on” women. Case files across the UK with nice families in them. Nice sounding people, but child abusers.

Vile case. The family court is an abusers dream. Do a course, smile at a social worker, get access. Horrible.

What judge awarded him custody? There needs to be an investigation from top to bottom.

Please consider signing this petition for a review of the family courts for the protection of children. We can be disgusted at this case but we can pressure the government to make changes to ensure abusive men do not gain access to children in the future.

takeaction.womensaid.org.uk/melaniebrownpetition

Thank you for that link, I've signed the petition. Such a shocking case, the details of what Sara suffered were unbearable to read at times