Screams ignored and fears of 'racism'... Sara Sharif's hideous murder in a quiet street appalled me - but it was the silence of authorities that left me truly outraged. This is why her death was a disgusting betrayal: SUE REID
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif was living in a quiet suburban street in Woking, Surrey, when, two years ago, she was hideously tortured and murdered.
Yesterday the memories of that beautiful little girl came flooding back.
Sara – a victim of what the judge in the later murder case described as the worst crime he’d ever encountered – had been killed by her 43-year-old father, Urfan, who then fled to his native Pakistan, with his wife and accomplice, Beinash.
They left the little girl to be found by police, half-hidden under a blanket in a bunk bed with 100 injuries and wounds, her head tied up in a plastic bag.
Sara was discovered only because Urfan informed the force in a panicked 999 call from Pakistan that she was dead. He said he had ‘legally’ punished Sara after she was naughty and he had ‘lost it’.
If the cowardly killer, who later in court blamed his wife for the death, had not made that call, I wonder how long Sara would have lain there without being found?
For one thing is clear about her death: the authorities involved in her short desperate, life failed her because they did not dare cause offence to serial domestic abuser Urfan Sharif or his wife – as a new child safeguarding report into the circumstances of her death admits.
Ten-year-old Sara Sharif was living in a quiet suburban street in Woking, Surrey, when, two years ago, she was hideously tortured and murdered
Sara – a victim of what the judge in the later murder case described as the worst crime he’d ever encountered – had been killed by her 43-year-old father, Urfan
What kind of ‘offence’ might this have been? These authorities were, I believe, afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic because like almost every public body in the land they had been captured by a dangerous, woke, politically correct, mindset that brooks no criticism of certain parts of society and has now let a child die because of it.
This is an outlook which halts all reasonable or proper inquiry. It stops social workers in their tracks and now we are seeing the terrible result.
Even the Sharifs’ neighbours did not sound the alarm when they saw she was suddenly being kept home from school even though they could hear her screaming, says the report. They were afraid of being called racist.
Yesterday’s review declared – incredibly – that although the system failed to keep Sara safe, no-one must be blamed apart from the father and stepmother.
I see this as a cop-out which will do nothing to help protect children (of all backgrounds) in the future.
Surely, there has to come a time when social workers – and others – are made accountable for their role in the lives of youngsters like Sara. And by that I don’t mean a whole department, but individual social workers, real people with real names.
I know a lot about Sara’s death, because after her body was discovered, I was passed a copy of handwritten note naming her killer which had been found by the police at the family house in Woking.
The note, left for officers near the girl’s body, was scrawled by her father in large writing on lined A4 paper said: ‘I am running away because I am scared. I lost it.’
When the Daily Mail published its existence – careful not to prejudice legal proceedings by naming names or the author – Surrey police turned on us.
Urfan Sharif informed police in a panicked 999 call from Pakistan that he had 'legally' punished Sara after she was naughty and he 'lost it'
When Sharif and his wife Beinash fled to Pakistan, they left the little girl to be found, half-hidden under a blanket in a bunk bed with 100 injuries and wounds, her head tied up in a plastic bag
We were threatened by the Force’s lawyers who told us to remove the story from our website at midnight one night.
The note, and much of its contents, were later used by the very same police force in evidence to push for a full trial into Sara’s murder.
In other words, the police wasted time and money, chasing down the Daily Mail to silence us when we had done nothing wrong.
I, for one, was unsurprised to find that this new report into the dreadful failings over Sara’s death concluded it had not been caused by ‘one specific malfunction within the safeguarding system’ and that no individuals, including ‘inexperienced’ social workers, should take the blame I believe they now deserve.
I, for one, was unsurprised to find that this new report into the dreadful failings over Sara’s death concluded it had not been caused by ‘one specific malfunction’, writes Sue Reid
Let’s be straight. There were multiple malfunctions by all those authorities who should have played a role in ensuring Sara’s safety.
We have witnessed dreadful wrongdoings involving children by professionals who profess to earn their living keeping our youngsters away from harm inside their own homes, on the streets or anywhere else.
The report itself finds the authorities ‘failed to join the dots’. That Sharif’s long history of domestic abuse was ‘lost within the system’.
Basic checks were not carried out, home visits delayed. Social workers were sent to the wrong address just two days before she died.
Inquiries were not made about why Sara was home-schooled and why, when she did go to class, she was suddenly wearing a hijab in line with her faith. This, of course, was deliberate: it covered her bruising.
This tragedy involves many people on the public payroll who should hang their heads in shame. I hope they cannot sleep at night – and that this is not the end of the matter.
It is time that Sara’s natural mother, a Polish lady called Olga who once had a relationship with Sharif, is given her say.
As she wisely commented, in tears, when her daughter’s body was found by police: ‘If there has been an accident to a child, like falling down the stairs, you don’t flee the country in secret.’
Olga lost her beloved daughter not only because of Sharif and his complicit wife, but because of lack of action of our child-safeguarding authorities which, first, placed Sara in the care of a man with a history of domestic violence and then appeared to step back for fear of being branded racist.
