Sara Sharif case - update - horrifying

[amIloud]

This case is just beyond the realms of horrifying,

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgl461xwg3do

This poor child.

Imagine being her teacher... 😔

There is an account on the bbc that makes it clear social services let her down. I didn’t realise she’d previously been in care due to violence against her as a toddler. And yet when the school report bruising, they did nothing. It made me so upset to read the full history.

The reports are chilling. Shame on social services, once again they have failed a child in need. Hopefully they are protecting the siblings who must have witnessed awful behaviour from the adults supposed to be caring for them. RIP Sara.

Of course after Baby P lessons were going to be learned and nothing like this would be ever allowed to happen again...

It’s horrendous that a child born into a family with so many issues that she was on social services radar before she was even born was failed in a such a way.

Social services and the court services should be facing criminal proceedings over their utter neglect of this little girl.

Social services and the court services should be facing criminal proceedings over their utter neglect of this little girl.

I am utterly disgusted with the family court and SS. How on earth are we supposed to protect children when the authorities make these utterly incomprehensible decisions.

I wish I had the influence to start a movement for total reform of children’s and family services. Children in this country are routinely let down by people who are supposed to protect them.

All of these children who could’ve been saved. It’s unbearable.

I read a quote from her former headteacher that made me cry. She sounded devastated. The school did what it could to report their concerns but, in that scenario, I think you'd be forever haunted by wondering if you could have done more.

I just can't get my head around how social services weren't all over it when Sara was withdrawn from school after her teachers flagged safeguarding concerns. It's incomprehensible that more wasn't done.

That poor, poor child.

What can they do? Schools can only report (which they did) - they have no powers of removal.

I find it heartbreaking that I’m in my late 40’s and the failures in social services that saw my siblings and I not removed from our parents still happen.

We were incredibly lucky - my headteacher took it upon herself to contact my grandparents (who’d been trying and trying to get something done) that she’d turn a blind eye if they were to come to the school and take us. They did and basically dared my parents to go to the police to get us back.

The information was all there in this case.

Parents are given far too many chances to inflict abuse on their children over and over again. There just seems to be no grasping that actually sometimes it’s not best to keep the family together. Not for the child.

I completely agree.

The report on the BBC is tragic. Sara was completely let down by the family courts. "Was her death preventable", the report asked. Given her father had a history of violence against women and children, she was taken into care three times and several people had reported concerns, it's absolutely clear that this isn't a case of people turning a blind eye. The courts did not do enough to protect the children.

I feel for her school, they look to have done everything right.

Sadly, this won't be the last incidence of horrific child abuse. I feel enquiries now are just a box ticking exercise and nothing really changes. The system cannot beat disgusting excuses for parents who seek to harm their children.

Rest in peace Sara 🙏

Apologuies for the foul and abusive language but simply cunts both of them.

It's sickening. Absolutely sickening. I can't even imagine why he'd want to take custody of her from her mother, if he cared so little for her that he could beat and torture the poor little mite to death over a prolonged period of time. The cynic in me says money. While she lived with her mother he had to pay some maintenance. She lived with him and she became a cash cow and a means to an end for a bigger house and more benefits. Like Victoria Climbie and so many others.

I'd very happily see him strung up and torn limb from limb. I hope he gets what's coming to him in prison.

A horrifying case. I have two young children and I can’t comprehend it. I really can’t.
What stands out to me is that the system must look at how it scrutinises children removed from education to be homeschooled. I’m not saying it’s always the wrong choice but it removes so much protection for children.
We really must do better, and as pointed out increase funding to the social services budget. It is simply failing - I imagine because it is hideously overstretched.

I'm sure the prisoners will give them what they deserve. I hope they serve life sentences and get outcasted from their families. Fucking scumbags, the pair of them

Resources are so poorly used.

Attendance officers sending letters and chasing parents with genuinely unwell children, being spread thinly rather than concentrating on children in need.

Social workers with unbelievably large caseloads but actually ‘working with’ families where there is zero hope of improvement.

Abusive (mostly) men allowed to constantly drag their exes through court for access they don’t deserve - imagine if they just said ‘no - you have DV convictions and abused your family - no access’

You will never convince me an
abusive parent should ever have access to their child.

The fact that children have rights and parents have responsibilities is so often forgotten in these cases. Repeated opportunities for parents to have their ‘right’ to bring up their child being out ahead of the child’s right to have a safe home is just absolute nonsense.

Someone who has already had a child removed permanently (and id put money on that being another girl) and has multiple convictions shouldn’t be given three, four, five more chances.

Family court proceedings need to be removed from being behind closed doors and put under much, much further scrutiny. The same judge was involved in cases with Sara’s family for many years - he should be held accountable and made to explain his decision making.

Totally agree, and especially when there have been previous safeguarding concerns. This shouldn't simply have raised a red flag, it should have had flashing lights and sirens blaring all over it. I simply cannot understand why more wasn't done to protect that poor little girl.

I shudder to think of the suffering that she endured during her short little life. It's heartbreaking to think of what they did to her. I just can't comprehend how it was allowed to happen.

Will there be a public enquiry into what went wrong, I wonder? Is there any point?

How on earth is it that we keep failing to learn the lessons of the past? How many more children will be tortured and killed before we actually make changes to protect them, I wonder?

the school and the social workers must be crying, just appalling
they needed to send her to school for her protection

Going to school wasn’t protecting her. The situation was clearly escalating.

Social services, and then the courts, needed to do their jobs when the school reported to them. They owed her the protection only they have the power to give

It sounds like the school did the most reporting and detailed everything. Those teachers must be devastated

Social Workers recommended that she be lived with her father from whom a sibling had already been removed.

The Social Workers in this case are part of the problem here. They can keep their fucking tears.

My MIL was a CP social worker - she was excellent, had very low threshold for bollocks and generally speaking felt many many more children would be better off removed.

i imagine we have all heard the news
the school was protecting her, they could keep an eye on her
they took her out of school.
just dreadful