Sara Sharif’s Life Could Have Been Saved. The System Looked Away.

When council workers set out to check on 10-year-old Sara Sharif the day before her family killed her, they walked up to the wrong front door. It was a simple administrative error, but one that now stands as an emblem of all the ways the UK system failed this child.

A new review by the Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership reveals just how many chances there were to save Sara before she was murdered in August 2023: a series of missed warnings, flawed assessments, and hesitating out of fear of seeming culturally insensitive.

Sara had endured two years of extreme violence at the hands of her father and stepmother in Woking, Surrey. By the time her body was found, she had been burned, beaten, bitten, scalded, and terrorized in ways difficult to comprehend. Those responsible, her father, 43-year-old Urfan Sharif, and stepmother, 30-year-old Beinash Batool — both of Pakistani origin — are now serving life sentences. Her uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, was also imprisoned for playing a role in her death.

Sharif, Batool, and Malik fled to Islamabad the day before Sara’s body was found on August 10, 2023. Soon after arriving in Pakistan, Sharif placed a 999 call, admitting, “I’ve killed my daughter… It wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”

On September 13, the three arrived back in the UK, where police arrested them at Gatwick Airport on suspicion of murder.

Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, is a Pakistani taxi driver who moved to England in 2001. His long history of domestic violence trailed him: former partners described violent beatings, being held captive in his flat, even his attempt to brand one woman with his initials after suffering a miscarriage.

In 2015, after Sara was born to his Polish wife, Sharif left the marriage and eloped with Beinash Batool—a British-Pakistani national twelve years younger, and herself a survivor of “honor-based” abuse who had lived in a shelter as a teenager. Sharif claimed they met in his taxi.

Sara Sharif was described as a bright, bubbly child. Photo: BBC

One of the most stark findings from the review is how fear — of appearing culturally insensitive, discriminatory, or even racist — became a barrier to action. When Sara suddenly began wearing a hijab, her teachers hesitated to ask why, worried about causing offense. One neighbor said they heard “constant crying” and “screaming” reaching “fever pitch”, while others reported they “feared being branded as being racist” if they said anything. Staff noticed bruises. School officials saw a once-bright girl shrink into herself, pulling a hijab down over her face to hide the marks. Police held extensive files on her father’s long history of domestic violence. Yet no one connected the pattern that, in hindsight, seems unmistakable. 

Meanwhile, a child was being abused to her death in plain sight.

Sara Sharif wanted to be a singer.

The turning point came in March 2023, when staff at Sara’s primary school reported fresh bruises on her face, including one so large it could not be ignored. The case was categorized as needing action within 24 hours. Yet children’s services did not check with the police, whose records could have revealed a long pattern of violent behavior by her father. They also failed to speak with the school, where staff had been watching Sara slip into silence. Instead, officials accepted the father’s explanation. No further steps were taken.

Soon after, he withdrew her from school entirely. From that moment on, Sara all but vanished from public view.

The school provided the council with her new address so a home-education visit could take place — but the address never made it into the system. When the home education team set out to visit her on August 7, 2023, they went to the old home. Realizing the mistake later, they decided to wait until after the summer to try again.

Sara was dead the next day.

Sara Sharif was 10 years old at the time of her murder. Photo: Surrey Police

What stands out in this case is not only the brutality Sara endured but the repeated opportunities to save her — and how many other girls are falling through the same gaps.

“Sara’s case isn’t an isolated story; it’s a heartbreaking reminder of what happens when a child becomes invisible and the systems meant to protect her fail to see the danger she is in,” Payzee Mahmod, survivor and campaigner against honor-based abuse, told More to Her Story. “This is painfully close to home. More than twenty years ago, services in the UK failed my own family. When social services finally intervened, they took one of my sisters away but left the rest of us behind. A few years later, my sister Banaz was murdered after years of abuse that professionals ignored, even when she asked for help over and over again. We were there. We were speaking. But we weren’t believed or seen.

Sara’s case follows the same pattern: concerns were raised, warnings were there, but her voice — like so many children’s voices — was pushed aside. Abusive adults were believed over her. And when professionals get that wrong, the consequences are fatal. We also have to be honest about something else: racial and cultural stereotyping plays a role. Too often, professionals hesitate to challenge or ‘interfere’ in families or communities because they fear being seen as racist, and that hesitation costs lives. We owe Sara a legacy that forces us to confront how and why safeguarding keeps failing the most vulnerable children, especially girls.”

Now, officials say they will accept every recommendation laid out in the review. They promise improvements, training, better coordination— reforms made in the shadow of a fully preventable death.