Murder of Sara Sharif 'illustrates dangers' of home schooling - judge

The murder of Sara Sharif ‘starkly illustrates the dangers’ of automatic home schooling, Mr Justice Cavanagh warned as he sentenced her killers yesterday.

Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool used the right to keep evidence of Sara’s beatings ‘beyond the gaze of the authorities’ in her final months, the judge said.

Yesterday the Government introduced a new Bill to Parliament which will block parents home schooling automatically if the child is suspected of being at risk of significant harm. But the Children’s Commissioner said the proposed legislation must go further, as it would not have helped Sara in its current form.

Teachers had submitted entries in the child protection online monitoring system after seeing Sara arrive at school with bruises on several occasions. It saw Sharif force his daughter to wear a hijab to cover them up in January last year but two months later a teacher spotted another bruise and the school made a referral to social services. Weeks later another injury was spotted.

When Sharif and Batool then announced they were home schooling Sara, no action was taken to stop them. From this point on Sara ‘was not seen by anyone in the outside world’ before she was beaten to death six months later.

Mr Justice Cavanagh said: ‘This case brings into sharp relief the dangers of unsupervised home schooling of vulnerable children.’ The Bill introduced in the wake of her murder will block parents’ automatic right to home school if they are subject to a child protection plan.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson described the Bill as a ‘seminal moment for child protection’. But Sara was not subject to social care intervention measures when she died, meaning it would not have blocked the home schooling.

Dame Rachel de Souza said: ‘The Bill must therefore go further in protecting children like her, making it impossible for a child ever known to social care for abuse or neglect to be home schooled.’

The 10-year-old schoolgirl suffered 'unimaginable pain' during more than two years of abuse and was ultimately tortured to death by her father Urfan Sharif, 43, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30. 

Sara was hooded, bitten, burned and eventually beaten to death during a campaign of abuse before her body was found with at least 71 injuries at the family's home in Woking, Surrey, last year - including a broken neck.

Sharif and Batool were found guilty of murder last Wednesday, while her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, was convicted of causing or allowing a child's death.

Sara was injured with a variety of weapons including being scalded with boiling liquid when she was restrained, being beaten with a cricket bat, being hit with a metal pole broken off from a children's high chair and being burned with an iron.

Urfan Sharif, aided by his wife and Sara's stepmother, Beinash Batool, beat Sara to death in an act of unspeakable brutality after spending 16 years torturing women and children.

Whilst being interviewed by police, Sara's stepmother Batool was seen to smirk at proceedings and refused to say whether she had other loved her.

When police found her broken little body dumped under the pink covers of her bunk bed by her fleeing family there were so many injuries- at least 71 externally and 29 fractures - that it was impossible to say which wound caused her death.

Sara was hauled out of St Mary's School in June 2022 to be home-schooled, a move which concerned teachers, but she was back the following September for the new academic year.

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By March 2023 Sara was wearing a hijab but teachers still noticed several bruises across her face - which Sara inconsistently blamed on roller skating and bike accidents - and reported their concerns to Surrey County Council's social services.

Despite the Sharifs being known to the council, a six day investigation found no reason to take further action and the school were told to 'monitor' Sara.

In her final weeks up to August 8, 2023, Sara sustained at least 25 broken bones and a traumatic brain injury. A post-mortem found she had 71 external injuries.

She died when her father rained down blows with a metal pole to her stomach before tucking her up in bed and fleeing with his family to Pakistan.

Text messages sent by one of the Sharif children to a friend said: 'Hello. Urgent. My sister just passed away'.

Two days later Urfan rang police from Pakistan where he admitted to killing his daughter. Sara was found by police officers next to a confession note written by her father.