Statement from the Children's Commissioner on the murder of Sara ...

Sara Sharif was killed by the people in her life that should have loved her the most – and they must now face the consequences of that terrible act.

Her death is a heartbreaking reminder of the profound weaknesses in our child protection system that, as a country, we have failed time and time again to correct. We have been here before – and each time we have said ‘never again’.

What haunts me the most about Sara’s death is that her father used the words ‘I legally punished my child’, believing this to be a defence to murder. It is unthinkable that any parent or carer could hide behind our legal system to justify such cruelty – and yet, children living in England today have less protection from assault than adults.

The law needs to change. The outdated defence in assault law that permits ‘reasonable chastisement’ of children must be removed as a matter of urgency, through the Children’s Wellbeing Bill being introduced to Parliament imminently.

Sara’s death must also bring about an immediate shift in how we protect children like her. Schools, so often the place where vulnerable children are identified and protected, must be made the fourth statutory safeguarding partners with the police, social care and health services. We need proper oversight of children being educated at home, through the long-promised register of children not in school and by requiring councils to sign off on home educating requests for some of the most vulnerable children.

This must go hand in hand with better data sharing by services and the introduction of a unique ID for every child. There can be no doubt that Sara was failed in the starkest terms by the safety net of services around her. Even before she was born, she was known to social care – and yet she fell off their radar so entirely that by the time she died, she was invisible to them all.

We can have no more reviews, no more strategies, no more debate. When we say ‘never again’, we have to mean it – let that be Sara’s legacy.