Concerns about Sara Sharif’s care were first raised when she was less than a week old – and her parents were known to social services three years prior, newly-reportable details show.
The 10-year-old girl was found dead at her family home in Woking, Surrey in August last year, with her father and stepmother having already fled to Pakistan with Sara’s uncle, her siblings and half-siblings.
Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, were on Wednesday convicted of her murder, while her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death.
Previously unreportable details about the family’s contact with social services and the courts can now be published.
They include the fact that concerns about Sara’s care were raised within a week of her birth in 2013 – while her parents Urfan and Olga Sharif had been known to social services as early as 2010.
Surrey County Council repeatedly raised “significant concerns” that the youngster was likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents.
While there were three sets of family court proceedings, allegations Urfan was physically abusing Sara and her siblings were never tested in court.
Despite the council’s concerns and court proceedings, Sara was repeatedly returned to her parents’ care before finally being placed with her father and stepmother in Woking in 2019.
Four years later, she was murdered in the family home.
The details come as an interview with Sara’s mother Olga has re-emerged. In it, she said her ex-husband once tried to set her on fire and strangled her with a belt.
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At the time of Sara’s death, Olga – who is from Poland – told Polish news channel TVN24: “There was a situation when [Sharif] told me not to go anywhere. I said I was going because my friend was waiting for me. He started to strangle me with a belt then.
“He tried to set me on fire once – he poured oil on me, but my cousin stopped him.”
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Olga, who has returned to using her maiden name Domin, lost custody of Sara to Sharif and Batool four years before her murder.
She said she contacted social services after Batool wrote that she should not visit the children because they “did not want to see me”.
Olga asked social services to provide her with support. “They said that the children did not want to see me, and there was nothing they could do about it. And that all I could do was wait,” she said.
Surrey County Council has said an independently-led safeguarding review of all professionals who had contact with Sara is under way.
