10 year old Sara Sharif was found dead at the family’s home in Woking, Surrey in August 2023. Earlier in Sara’s life the local council had been extremely concerned by the risk from her birth parents and had twice tried to take her into care, but by 2019 (when Sara was 6 years old) she had moved from living with her mother to living with her father and new stepmother and the council decided that it would have no further involvement with the family.
In December 2024 Sara’s father Urfan Sharif and stepmother Beinash Batool were found guilty of Sara’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with Sara’s uncle also convicted of allowing the death of a child. The pathologist who carried out Sara’s post-mortem examination described the cause of her death as complications arising from multiple injuries and long-standing neglect. Sara had been taken out of school in mid-April 2023, a few months before her death. Surrey CC closed down a safeguarding referral from school the year before Sara died and opted not to respond to further concerns from the school at the point of Sara’s removal from school.
Surrey Child Safeguarding Practice Review 2025
As required by law, Surrey CC where Sara lived and died, was required to carry out a Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review [LCSPR]. The findings were published by Surrey CC on November 13th 2025 https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/community/news/categories/your-council/sara-sharif-safeguarding-practice-review-published
“There was extensive involvement with Sara and her family from a variety of agencies throughout her life. Many times, professionals recognised the risk to Sara from the adults looking after her, most notably her father, and steps were taken to try and keep her safe. Ultimately these steps failed. After the local authority was unsuccessful in removing Sara from her family in two sets of care proceedings, her father was able to assume a position of power over Sara, her siblings and any professional who may have been able to challenge his motives and capacity to provide a safe, loving home” Surrey CSPR 2025
Surrey’s Review into the death of Sara Sharif made 15 recommendations which I have summarised below.
- Surrey multi-agency safeguarding processes should be more robust
- The government should provide clear guidance on evaluating whether a child is at risk of abuse
- The government should make changes to home education guidance
- Surrey council should check information held by Surrey police when a child is withdrawn for home education
- Multi-agency domestic abuse training should take place locally and nationally focusing on risks to women and children
- Private law proceedings should have information from Cafcass and local authorities should be able to request care or supervision orders
- Safeguarding risks to children must be considered in private law proceedings
- Interpreters should be available for parents in family court disputes
- Where Cafcass and the local authority have different views about the care plan for a child, a summary should be prepared for the judge
- Where a child supervision order is in place, it should be properly implemented
- Surrey should consider assumptions and biases in dealing with diverse cultures and ensure understanding of complex processes where English is not the first language
- Real or perceived barriers to information gathering and sharing must be explored
- The health visiting service should be sufficiently funded
- Surrey multi-agency training should ensure participation from all relevant professional groups
- Surrey should improve systems, processes and training for all working with children and families
The review was highly critical of local systems in Surrey and of under-funding; raised concerns about understanding of domestic abuse; highlighted the lack of interpreters to support parents through complex processes (giving the more fluent English speaking parent – the father and stepmother in Sara’s case – an unfair advantage over the birth mother); flagged up multiple issues with private law proceedings and their aftermath, including Surrey CC wrongly assuming that “assessments carried out at that time had ensured that this was a safe and loving home…professional hierarchy driving practice”.
For whatever reason, the government has chosen to focus on the home education recommendations and on “information sharing”, via the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The bill is expected to pass into law around Easter 2026, with the majority of Children Not In School measures coming into force in 2027.
Proposed Changes To Home Education Law
Below are extracts from the Department for Education Policy Summary Notes published January 7th 2026 [SOURCE]
“Why has the government tabled an amendment extending the requirement for consent to home education to children who were previously on child protection plans in the last 5 years?
Children are placed on child protection plans because they are suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.
Removal from school shortly after a plan has ended could be destabilising and removes the child from a key line of sight, potentially making the child vulnerable to the previous harm again.
Given the high threshold at which a child is placed on a plan; and the support often provided to the family even after the plan has been discharged (recognising continued vulnerability), it is also right that those children can be required to attend school if it is in their best interests.
Finding the right balance between points of contact for home educated children (and for families considering home education) while safeguarding family privacy is a delicate matter. Following the Local Children’s Safeguarding Practice Review into the murder of Sara Sharif, we have reflected carefully and concluded that the Bill, as first
introduced, did not strike that balance as well as it could do.”
“Is the government going to accept the recommendations on home education from the LCSPR into Sara Sharif’s death?
We have tabled amendments to the Children Not in School clauses in this Bill to address recommendations in the report.
For example, we have tabled an amendment that would require parents to attend mandatory meetings before they can withdraw their child from school for home education; this is to be piloted in selected local authorities.
We have also tabled amendments that would require local authorities to consider the child’s home within 15 days of the child being registered on the Children Not in School registers and, as part of this, empower local authorities to request to visit the child in their home.
Local authorities would also be required to consider the other settings where the child is being educated that they know about within 15 days of recording this information for their Children Not in School registers.
If the environments appear unsuitable or a request for a home visit is refused, the local authorities would be required to consider this in deciding whether to begin the School Attendance Order process.
As part of the implementation of the measures, we intend to review the current Elective Home Education guidance and to make clear in statutory guidance when and how parents with parental responsibility should be consulted about a child’s home education.
We will continue to consider the findings of the review with the support of the National Child Safeguarding Review Panel”
Opposition Amendment Baroness Barran
Prompted by the case of Sara Sharif, the opposition shadow education minister Baroness Barran is trying to make further sweeping changes to home education law, whereby local authority consent for withdrawal from school will be required if there are currently, or have ever been, enquiries, proceedings or action initiated in relation to the child under section 31 or 47 of the Children Act 1989 or the child is currently classified as a child in need under section 17 of that Act. Section 31 is about taking children into care, while section 47 is about child protection enquiries, and section 17 is about children in need.
Birth Parents
In 2013 before Sara was even born the local authority where they were living began family court proceedings against her parents Olga Domin and Urfan Sharif because of child neglect. Domin and Sharif had one child together and Domin was pregnant with Sara plus there was an older child of Domin’s with special needs and disability.
Initially the local authority wanted to remove the children from their parents and take them into state care but after hearing expert witnesses from the local authority and from CAFCASS the family court judge ruled that the children could remain with their parents.
In 2014 the children were taken from their parents and put into emergency foster care because of injuries to Domin’s oldest child. Local authority social workers felt in particular that the Sharifs could not manage this oldest child’s needs plus there were allegations of domestic violence between the parents.
However, by the time it came to court the situation had changed to such an extent that the family court judge assessed that the threshold for taking Sara and her brother into care was not met. Arrangements had been made for the oldest child (the one who had been injured) to be cared for elsewhere, PLUS Olga said she was separating from Sharif, so the children would not be exposed to domestic violence.
Sara and her brother then lived with their mother Olga Domin. In 2019 there were allegations that Olga Domin was mistreating the children.
Father And New Stepmother
Meanwhile Sara’s father Urfan Sharif started a second family with Beinash Batool and had had three more children. Despite the documented history of child neglect, family court proceedings, and domestic violence allegations, it appears that there were no arrangements put in place for monitoring Urfan Sharif once his first family was no longer living with him.
After the allegations against Domin in 2019, Urfan Sharif – who had by now reinvented himself – said it would be better for Sara and her brother to live with him and his new wife and children so they could all be a family together.
Later in 2019 Sharif and Batool went to family court and gained custody of Sara and her brother. “At the conclusion of these proceedings… the intention will be that Surrey County Council children’s services do not have any further involvement,” a social worker explained in court [LINK].
Within months of being returned to her father Sara became subject to systematic abuse, from 2020 until her death in 2023. During the murder trial the court saw horrifying messages from Sara’s stepmother Batool about Urfan Sharif’s ongoing violent attacks on Sara.
At the murder trial it was also revealed that the stepmother – who had been viewed as a protective factor for Sara during private family court proceedings for Sharif to gain custody– took an increasing part in the attacks.
There is no evidence that any of Batool’s children were assaulted and nor was Sara’s brother; their trauma was secondary. It is believed that Sara was singled out for abuse from 2020 because she was a girl and therefore of less value. Her father also justified the beatings and torture as “punishment”, saying in a call to the police“I did legally punish my daughter and she died.”
Safeguarding Referrals
In 2022 and in 2023 Sara’s school noticed bruises. The second time in March 2023 the school made a safeguarding referral. Local authority social workers apparently ran a multi-agency check and closed the case which ties in with the intention that “Surrey County Council children’s services do not have any further involvement” from 2019.
In April 2023 Sharif and Batool notified the school that Sara was going to be home educated. The school apparently telephoned the local authority for advice and was told it would have to make a new safeguarding referral which the school decided against. It then seems the authority took no further interest.
The local authority was aware that Sara had been taken out of school because schools have a legal duty to inform the authority. Additionally in Sara’s case, the local authority should have been aware of the recent safeguarding referral from the school. Sara’s father Urfan Sharif had also been on file for over a decade.
Local authorities have staff who are responsible for engaging with home educating families. The home education department at the local authority is expected to contact a new home educating family and information should always be shared if there are safeguarding concerns.
AN EARLIER VERSION OF THIS PAGE WAS POSTED ON MY BLOG WHICH ALSO HAS ADDITIONAL LINKS https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/sara-sharif/