Sara Sharif murder shows danger of homeschooling vulnerable children – judge

The murder of Sara Sharif “starkly illustrates the dangers” of parents automatically being able to homeschool their children, the judge sentencing her killers warned.

The 10-year-old had been pulled out of school just months before her death, in a “ruse adopted for wholly selfish purposes” to cover up evidence of her repeated beatings.

Sara, whose battered body was discovered at her family home in Woking, Surrey, in August last year, was removed from school by her family, despite teachers having noticed marks on her face and referred her to social services.

Homeschooling her allowed the abuse at the hands of her father Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, to carry on “beyond the gaze of the authorities”, Mr Justice Cavanagh told them on Tuesday.

Their life sentences were imposed just as the Government introduced a new Bill to Parliament, promising to strengthen safeguards for children.

Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will see parents no longer having an automatic right to take their children out of school for home education if the young person is subject to a child protection investigation or under a child protection plan – meaning the child is suspected of being at risk of significant harm.

The proposed legislation will also give local authorities power to intervene and require school attendance for any child if the home environment is assessed as unsuitable or unsafe.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said “too many children have been failed by their last line of defence: the state” in recent years, and described the Bill as a “seminal moment for child protection”.

But the Children’s Commissioner said the Bill must go further, as it would not have helped Sara in its current form.

Despite having had concerns raised about her care within a week of her birth in 2013, and with Surrey County Council repeatedly voicing “significant concerns” that Sara was likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents, the little girl was not subject to social care intervention measures when she died.

In March 2023, a referral was made to social services after a member of school staff noticed Sara had bruises, but just six days later a decision was made by social services to take no further action on the referral.

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 homeschooled.”

Sharif and Batool had tried to cover up their abuse of Sara, twice taking her out of school, in a case the judge said “brings into sharp relief the dangers of unsupervised homeschooling of vulnerable children”.

Passing sentence at the Old Bailey, he said: “When they felt they needed to, you, Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool, were able to hide the abuse that Sara was suffering by the simple expedient of announcing that she was to be homeschooled.”

He said while homeschooling can happen for good reasons and with parents having good intentions, “this case starkly illustrates the dangers”.

He added: “It is a matter of concern that parents who are abusing or who have malign intent towards their children appear to be able to homeschool more or less at will and without supervision.”

On top of the abuse, the judge said it appeared Sara was also “deprived of an education” when she was pulled from school.

He said: “The pretext of homeschooling was simply a ruse adopted for wholly selfish purposes, to cover up the abuse to which Sara was subject, and to continue with the abuse beyond the gaze of the authorities.”

On Tuesday, the couple were jailed for life for Sara’s murder, with Sharif handed a minimum term of 40 years and Batool given 33 years.

Sara’s uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, who was found guilty of causing or allowing her death, was jailed for 16 years.

The case prompted Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to say there were “questions that need to be answered” on protections for children.

The NSPCC called for “substantial, nationwide reform and investment in the services which we rely on to keep our children safe”, noting that Sara’s name has “joined a lengthening list from recent years, which also includes Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Star Hobson and Alfie Phillips, where horrific abuse from a parent or carer has directly led to the death of a young child”.

Campaigners, including the Children’s Commissioner, have also been calling for an end to the legal defence of “reasonable chastisement” in England set out in the Children’s Act of 2004.

Sharif claimed in a call to police after fleeing England for Pakistan that he “did legally punish” his daughter and that he “beat her up too much”.

Ms Phillipson said the Government has no plans to legislate for a smacking ban, but Dame Rachel said the law as it stands offering such a defence has “got to change”.

The commissioner told Times Radio: “We’ve got adults today using that to batter their kids and to say, oh, it’s OK, it’s legal. What are we doing? Dogs, animals and adults have more rights than children.”

Wales made any type of corporal punishment, including smacking, hitting, slapping and shaking, illegal in March 2022 while Scotland introduced a similar ban in November 2020.

Other aspects of the newly-introduced Bill will include new registers to identify children not in school, and a measure giving children a unique identifier number – akin to a national insurance number – in a bid to ensure issues can be tracked and shared across services “preventing children from falling through the cracks”.

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said: “The urgency with which this legislation is being introduced to Parliament demonstrates the importance of these issues. It lays a foundation for change in many children’s lives – many of whom have been neglected or hidden by services working in silo.”

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said the measures due to be introduced make “good sense, and frankly, cannot come soon enough”, while school leaders’ union NAHT also welcomed the Bill, saying the not-in-school register is an “important safeguarding measure…finally being taken after years of delay”.

On the Bill, Wendy Charles-Warner, chairwoman of home education charity Education Otherwise, said: “It is perfectly reasonable that a parent should need consent to remove a child subject to a child protection plan from a school roll, but we need social workers to receive high quality training in respect of home education as currently they simply do not understand it.

“What is not reasonable is to make requirements for those children simply under investigation, as the majority of such investigations do not result in child protection plans being required.

“It is concerning that (the) implication is that inspection of homes will be introduced as that is wholly unacceptable and disproportionate. Families are entitled to privacy.”