Sixteen years on, I still remember how much I did not want to go to 36 Leyton Road, Birmingham, when dispatched by my news editor. It was May 2008, and I was a reporter for a local radio station. We’d learned that a child had died in the Handsworth area of the city: not in a terrible accident or as a result of gang violence, but at the hands of her parents. Seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq had been starved and subjected to unimaginable cruelty. She weighed just 16.8kg at her death, with 60 separate injuries as a result of punishment beatings.
Neighbours told me they thought it was “a bit odd” that they hadn’t seen Khyra for a few months, but didn’t think too much of it and didn’t want to pry. Another told the press that Khyra had been so hungry she had taken stale bread left out for the birds. Khyra’s mother reportedly admonished the neighbour for leaving the food out, and from then on the neighbour “looked away” because they “didn’t want another row”. As I got into the car to drive back to the station, I couldn’t believe what I had heard. I was deeply upset, angry and confused. How could the people I spoke to have noticed a little girl go “missing” and not ask questions?
Khyra and her five siblings had been taken out of school months before her death. It later emerged concerns raised by the school were inadequately acted upon by social services. Staff attended the house in January and February, but Khyra’s mother, Angela Gordon, refused to let them see the little girl. The council took no further action. When two further social workers visited later in February, they reported that they had no concerns for Khyra’s well-being; Gordon had again refused them entry to the house, despite the visit being prearranged, but Khyra was brought to meet them at the front door.
The case has never really left me, and I have been reminded of it while reading the devastating details that have emerged in court about the death of ten-year-old Sara Sharif in August 2023. Jurors at the Old Bailey have heard Sharif’s injuries at the time she died included “probable human bite marks”, a burn from an iron and scalds. She was also found to have ten spinal fractures, with further breaks to her right collar bone, both shoulder blades, arms and hands, three fingers, bones near the wrist in each hand, two ribs and the hyoid bone in the neck. There were 71 external injuries in total. Sara’s father, Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, have pleaded not guilty to Sara’s murder.
Just like Khyra, Sara had been removed from school in the months before her death. Just like with Khyra, Sara’s school had reported concerns over her well-being to social services after spotting bruises on her face. But Surrey social services decided not to intervene, just as Birmingham had done so many years before. Surrey police have confirmed they had “historic” contact with the family, but we know little else; Surrey County Council is unlikely to release its safeguarding review until criminal proceedings have finished. Both girls were badly let down by the authorities whose job it was to protect them. But, just as with some of Khyra’s neighbours, those living near the Sharif family didn’t report their concerns.
One of Sara’s neighbours told the court they heard screaming, “constant crying” and “banging” when living in the flat above the Sharif family’s previous home in West Byfleet. “It almost seemed like [the children had] been locked in a bedroom, that constant rattling of a door, trying to get it open,” they said. They had often heard Batool “almost hysterical, screaming” at the children and using abusive language towards them. The neighbour had asked Batool if everything was OK and had “the door shut in my face”. Nor did the next person who lived in the flat raise concerns. They told the court they thought they heard “smacking” from downstairs followed by a scream. Asked whether they had contacted the authorities, they said that they “convinced [themselves] that everything was OK”. “I spoke to people and was told to mind my own business and ignore [it].” Someone who lived near the family’s Woking house told police they heard a child’s scream in the days before Sara’s death. “It did not sound good. I wondered to myself whether I should tell someone… I did not hear another scream or any other noise so I did not take it any further.”
I do not intend to cause these individuals any more pain than they must already feel. They are not responsible for the unspeakable cruelty meted out to Sara, any more than Khyra’s neighbours were for her death 16 years ago. It is easy to criticise with the benefit of hindsight. But the mark of a civilised society is surely how it cares for its most vulnerable. Sara’s case prompts the question of whether we are active citizens, stepping in when something doesn’t seem right, or passive, assuming it’s the state’s job to intervene?
In his 2022 independent review of social care, Josh MacAlister mentioned the word “community” more than 150 times, and rightly wrote: “Government cannot provide love and relationships as a service… We all have a part to play.” Caring for children, he added, is “so fundamental that if we do not get it right, we struggle to get anything else right”. If we report children’s screams or emaciated bodies and are wrong, we might be accused of interfering. But if we don’t report our fears, a child could die. I know which I’d choose.
[See also: In America, women are disposable]
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This article appears in the 07 Nov 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Trump takes America