Judges who allowed Sara Shariff to live with killer dad and step mum are named
The three judges who allowed Sara Sharif to live with her dad before he beat her to death have been named following a Court of Appeal ruling.
Judge Alison Raeside, Judge Peter Nathan and Judge Sally Williams were all involved in family court proceedings related to the 10-year-old between 2013 and 2019.
Sara was eventually placed in the home of her dad, Urfan Sharif, and her step mum Beinash Batool, who subjected her to a campaign of abuse for two years.
She suffered more than 25 broken bones, iron burns on her bottom, burn marks from hot water being poured on her feet and human adult bite marks.
Sara was killed at the family home in Woking, Surrey, in August 2023, with Urfan even beating her with a cricket bat as she lay dying.
But Surrey County Council was involved with the Sharif family for several years before Sara’s death, with care proceedings beginning just a week after her birth.
They had also received ‘referrals indicative of neglect’ relating to Sara’s two older siblings, known only as Z and U, two years before she was born while her mother Olga and dad still lived together.
In November 2014, after Z was found with an arm injury consistent with an adult bite mark, Sara and her two siblings were taken into police protection.
In 2015 Sara remained living with her mother and seeing her father on supervised visits.
This is despite Judge Raeside being told the authority was ‘extremely concerned’ that Sara and U were ‘likely to suffer significant emotional and physical harm in their parents’ care’, as both alleged the other was violent.
But four years later, Sara was moved to Urfan’s house where she would later be murdered after Olga was accused of physically abusing her children.
In a report for a final hearing in October 2019, a social worker told the court that they assessed that ‘Urfan and Beinash are able to meet Sara and (U’s) needs for safety, stability, emotional warmth and guidance’, adding that Urfan Sharif ‘appears to have the children’s welfare at heart’.
The move was also supported by the children’s guardian and Sara’s parents and was approved by Judge Raeside.
But the Court of Appeal has ruled they can be named in the interests of open justice, having heard that all three judges wanted ‘to convey their profound shock, horror and sadness about what happened to Sara Sharif’.
Judge Raeside, who remains an active judge, dealt with the majority of the proceedings related to Sara, with Judges Nathan and Williams – who have both since retired – involved to a lesser degree.
Sara was murdered in August 2023 after a campaign of abuse, with Urfan Sharif and Batool jailed for life with minimum terms of 40 years and 33 years respectively for her murder last December.
Her uncle, Faisal Malik, was jailed for 16 years for causing or allowing her death.
In the same month, Mr Justice Williams ruled that the media could access documents from the historic proceedings but ruled that social workers, guardians and judges could not be named.
He said that the decisions of professionals involved were ‘not obviously flawed’ and the decision of Judge Raeside to send Sara to her father’s home was ‘indicated by faithful application of law and practice mandated’.
Several media organisations appealed against the restriction on naming judges.
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