New homeschooling measures 'imminent' after Sara Sharif death, minister says
The day after Sara Sharif's father, stepmother and uncle were sentenced over her death, a report revealed that more than 480 children died or were seriously harmed by abuse, ITV News' Ellie Pitt reports
New regulations around homeschooling will be announced "imminently", according to a government minister, following the case of murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif.
Commons leader Lucy Powell said the government will be announcing details of “stronger safeguards for children being taken into home education” as she paid tribute to 10-year-old Sara.
Sara was killed four months after she was taken out of her mainstream school, despite recent social services referrals after teachers noticed that she had bruises on her face.
On Wednesday her father, Urfan Sharif, 42, and stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, were found guilty of her murder. Her uncle Faisal Malik, 29, who lived with them, was convicted of causing or allowing her death.
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In April 2023 Sara's father claimed he wanted to homeschool her and by August, he had murdered her.
Family court documents showed that there were numerous opportunities for Sara to be saved, with police, in-school safeguarding practitioners, social services and the wider family all having had contact with the 10-year-old in her short life.
When asked about the case on Thursday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said this issue of domestic violence should not be in any way conflated with the rules on parents smacking their children.
"This is about violence, it's about abuse. It's about making sure there is protection and safeguards for children, particularly those being homeschooled. So that's where I think the questions are," he said.
"But my response first and foremost is a human response - it's just the most awful case that many people will find very, very, very hard to hear."
Missed opportunities to save Sara
Her family was already known to the authorities in 2010 - three years before Sara was born - due to violence towards her older siblings.
From birth Sara was under a care order, meaning that Surrey County Council had legal responsibility for her.
Sara then spent multiple years in and out of foster care after her biological mother Olga Domin accused Sharif of domestic abuse against her and the children. Sharif then agreed to go on a domestic violence awareness course.
Sharif was granted custody of Sara in 2019 after the then-six-year-old said her mother had tried to drown her in the bath and burnt her with a lighter.
Hundreds of children have died or been seriously harmed as a result of abuse according to a report released on Thursday.
Data from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel revealed that 485 children were affected by serious incidents between April 1 2023 and March 31 2024.
Of the 330 serious incident notifications received by the panel, almost half were for children who died (46%) and more than a third involved babies under one.
The report highlighted the need to support children with mental health needs, as 16% of the children featured in the report died by suicide, and 92% of the children who took their own lives were recorded as having a mental health condition.
Most of them were aged between 11 and 17 but the youngest was just six years old.
It also called for greater measures to improve partnerships between adult and children mental health services to protect pre-school aged children whose parents suffer from poor mental health.
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