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.

that would be outrageous if I ever said something of that sort.

You attacked another poster because they said the mother is not blameless!

I asked you not to make it personal please- this is the third time that you have crossed that boundary. I’m not derailing anything. I’m discussing the problems in the UK care system that let this child down in the most tragic and horrific of ways.

And she, by the sounds of things, bit and burnt her children and abandoned them to wander the streets alone, barely more than toddlers. The only reason it wasn't worse for longer is because they were removed. Sadly for Sara it was futile because she went out of the frying pan and into the fire.

For crying out loud, why are you so reluctant to apportion any blameor crticism whatsoever onto her mother? It's all out there now, in black and white from the court case. It's not like people are just making stuff up about Olga to discredit her for the laughs. No-one is asking you to take blame off her father and place it onto Olga. We all know he's a monster. But Olga is not an innocent victim here. A big part of the reason Sara is dead is because Olga wasn't better. It's very, very bizarre that you want to keep fighting her corner.

An even bigger part of the reason she is dead is because of the decision made by the family court judge, who seemed to put Batool on some sort of pedestal. In spite of knowing Urfan's history, the judge decided, on the back of meeting Batool, that Sara would be safer there. I'd be very interested to know if any SWs and the judge in this case were Muslim, because it does seem like the most bizarre and ill-judged decision. I can't help but wonder if they were swayed by what they hoped was a 'good' religious, Muslim family with 'good' Islamic values, versus a not very bright, sexually promiscuous floosy of a white western woman with an alleged history of sex work and drugs. Maybe they made a value judgement based on their preferred religion and conservative culture. I do hope not, but maybe that was it. It would explain a lot.

No , I didn’t attack anyone . , I questioned the perspective of another poster who suggested that Sara’s mother was to blame for the courts decision to place her with her father and for the fact that she subsequently ended up dead. I think it is deeply wrong to hold Sara’s mother to blame for either of those things.

That doesn’t mean “she’s not to blame for anything, because she’s a woman”, it means that she’s not to blame for the awful decisions and actions of other people, because she did not make those decisions or do those things.

I think blaming the mother is part of a pattern in society which leads to the kind of gender bias that influences the kind of court decisions that put children at risk.

Of course they are going to contest it. Doesn't mean it's not in the best interests of the child. Some people shouldn't be parents

It's no more personal than the aggressive comments you've made to orher posters. I have simply questioned your motivations, which quite clearly are not centred on child welfare rather the balance of the rights between two parents, or on this tragic case given that they are on topics that are irrelevant to poor Sara's circumstances. Then been quite rude to other posters, responded only selectively and largely off-topic and then tried to gaslight them when they question the motivations for these posts by accusing them of "crossing your boundaries". 🙄

I find it pretty distasteful that you've tried to piggy back on Sara's death to promote some agenda of your own and shalln't respond to your further.

I’m not going to argue with you about what you think of me.
It’s really not relevant to the discussion which is about the UK care system.

You aren't though. You are going off on irrelevant tangents. The real failings in the system are there for all to see and I don't think there is much evidence to show that very many horribly abusive fathers regularly seize full custody of their children from saintly, blameless mothers with no issues and no struggles to parent adequately, in spite of your insistence. If it happens, it must be in a tiny minority of cases. You seem to want to present it as the norm.

I asked you not to make it personal please- this is the third time that you have crossed that boundary

Also just for clarity to everyone else reading this, as is clear if you look through the thread no comment had been made to me previously about "boundaries" so this is completely made up. The poster accused other posters of "crossing her boundaries" previously for responding to her views, but not me. I really don't appreciate false accusations being levelled at me. The irony of this behaviour clearly didn't register.

saintly, blameless mothers with no issues and no struggles

Is this your standard for women to be taken seriously in the family courts?

What are your minimum standards of a mother to be able to keep custody of her children? Do you even have a base level below which it's non-negotiable? It doesn't sound like it.

That’s the point - this discussion is not supposed about the “UK care system”, it is supposed to be about Sara Sharif and her alone. Please just start your own separate thread to talk about how you perceive the UK care system.

Seriously, stop it.

You can care about the (very real) issues with the family courts not taking into account fathers' violence against mothers when making decisions about children, without using the terrible sadistic murder of this poor child to do it.

This thread is not about your views of family court or on the rights and wrongs of adoption, make another thread if you want to talk about that.

RIP Sara, who was utterly failed.

Batool certainly is able to sound quite prim and proper and I think she made an impression on the judge. Batool's court-ordered responsibility was initially to supervise contact between Sara and her mother.

It is not uncommon in social work to allow a child to continue living with a parent who is a risk in some way as long as the other parent is seen as sufficiently protective.
It happens all the time.

I thought it was to discuss the case and what could be learned from it:
That is what other posters are doing. I’m am going ti participate too even if you find my opinions challenging- because it’s important.
It’s important , because of this terrible things that happened to Sara, the reasons they happened and what needs to change now to prevent similar in the future.

It is not uncommon in social work to allow a child to continue living with a parent who is a risk in some way as long as the other parent is seen as sufficiently protective

👆🏻 discussion of the care system.

It’s not that I find your opinions challenging, it’s more that I find your manner intimidating as you won’t listen to others and are constantly on the attack. A few people have said you have derailed the thread after all…

Personally I didn’t feel like returning to the thread, due to the constant tangent of the conversation over the last 6 pages. You don’t need to get on your soap box here. Everyone here already thinks what happened to Sara is horrific yet you seem to think we condone it.

If you want meaningful change to happen then just contact your MP - there isn’t much people here can do for you.

Right. But you argue against it being best for Sara to have been adopted from birth and you argue against custody of Sara being given to her father (which none of us disagree with BTW.)

So you tell us what you think should have happened, in Sara's case.

She made clear what she thinks earlier:

Did the evidence show that Olga was at least as dangerous as Sharif?
Would Sara be alive right now if she were placed in the care of her mother?

she clearly thinks the poor child should have been left with her abusive mother because she was maybe slightly less abusive than her father. Vile.

But you argue against it being best for Sara to have been adopted from birth

I never said that at all

This is what I said,

Adoption may have been the right thing for Sara, or not. We don’t have all the evidence and the evidence we do have is very thin and problematic.
The one thing we know about this case is that it was profoundly wrong - the ultimate wrong- that she was placed in the care of her father. The learning to take from that is not that the UK system is too reluctant to forcibly remove children from their parents (it isn’t). The learning to take is that violent men are given far too much of the benefit of the doubt in the family courts and access to children- this is a systemic problem in the UK system.

I think the problem in this case was that the gender bias of the social workers and the judge caused them to dismiss mum’s claims about abuse/ violence by Sharif, all the while being totally taken in / convinced by Shariffs claims against Sara’s mum - ( a pp has already explained how video testimony created by one parent is supposed to be taken with skepticism). The more they demonised mum (as people on this thread are also very hasty to do) the more they were enchanted by dad and batool and their testimony, and that caused them to overlook and dismiss his violent past. I think that is the real issue in this case and it’s a systemic one in the family courts atm.

In this case it led to the worst possible outcome - the torture and death of an child- and yet people still want to deny and dismiss these (gender) issues as “tangential”, and paint me (!) as manipulative and opportunistic for raising them.

Vile

who me?

Well then you'll have to be a little bit clearer because I think that is the impression we are all getting from you.

Sara's parents were on SS radar before she was born. She was taken into care twice and returned to her mother, before eventually being sent to live with her father, even though her father was also known to be abusive. Other children were also removed from Olga.

What would you have done differently? I know what I would have done. I'd have made sure Sara was adopted at the first available opportunity, ideally straight after birth, faced with the evidence that was available at the time. Certainly by the time she was being taken into care for the second time, I'd definitely be pushing for adoption. I imagine he at least (if not Olga) would have resisted that, so it would be a 'forced' adoption.

It's clear that you disagree with this, so I ask again, what would you have preferred to see?

The more they demonised mum (as people on this thread are also very hasty to do)

Are you for real?

As I asked you before, what is your lowest standard beneath which a mother is not fit to keep custody of her child? Do you even have one?

How many times do you want me to repeat myself?

I don’t know what I would have done because I don’t know enough about the situation .

There are many , many different options which arent either 1) forced adoption before birth (maybe in this case that would have been correct , I don’t know !)
or 2) place sara entirely in the hands of a seriously violent man

The only thing we know for sure is that 2) was the ultimate wrong. Thats all I’ve said

Why did they do this? Knowing his history of violence. Thats what I’m interested in exploring as I think it’s what is most important in this case.