Sara Sharif's father given custody despite years of reported abuse

Sara Sharif's father was awarded custody of the schoolgirl despite being accused of abusing her siblings and mother for years, it has emerged.

- Emine Sinmaz

The trial of Urfan Sharif, 43, revealed how Surrey children's services, Surrey police and Sara's primary school knew of concerns about the family for 16 years.

During the period of abuse and torture leading up to her death, Sharif twice said he would homeschool his daughter, and yesterday ministers pledged stronger safeguards for children being taken into home education.

The leader of the Commons, Lucy Powell, told MPs: "We are committed to further reform of children's social care and much stronger safeguards for children being taken into home education. This is long overdue, and further details will be announced imminently."

The full extent of the authorities' involvement in Sara's short life can be revealed after an application by the Guardian and other media to publish information from family court documents.

They show that children in the family were bitten, burned and beaten and neglected. The abuse foreshadowed the assaults on Sara, who was bitten, burned and beaten to death by her father and stepmother, Beinash Batool, less than four years after a family court awarded the couple custody.

Sharif, 43, and Batool, 30, were convicted of the 10-year-old's murder on Wednesday after an eight-week trial at the Old Bailey.

Sara was made the subject of a child protection plan as soon as she was born in January 2013 because of concerns that she was at risk of harm from Sharif, and mother Olga Domin, who has suspected learning difficulties.

The family was known to social services and police before Sara's birth. Police were involved four times between May 2010 and August 2012, and Surrey children's services were in contact from 2010.