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.
Urfan and Batool were jailed for life, but the press was barred from reporting the names of the judges and other professionals involved in deciding where Sara should live.
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 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.
This is despite being told the council had a ‘number of concerns in relation to the care that Olga Sharif and Mr Sharif provide Z and U and are likely to provide to Sara’ in the years leading up to her death.
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.
Olga Sharif later accepted a caution after being charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
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.