In his latest exclusive for Cansford, Family Law blogger John Bolch examines the case regarding Sara Shariff and the issues regarding judges rulings, directions and transparency.
The judges involved in the historic family court proceedings relating to Sara Sharif have been named, following the judgment of the Court of Appeal that allowed the media to name them.
The Court of Appeal made the ruling primarily because there was no jurisdiction to anonymise the historic judges, but that of course does not mean that naming them was the right thing to do, from a non-legal standpoint.
The reader will no doubt be aware of the basic background to the Sara Sharif case, but for a proper understanding we need to look a little deeper than most people probably have done. In a piece like this I cannot go too far into the detail, but hopefully what follows will be sufficient for our purposes.
Sadistic torture
Sara was born in 2013. Since 2010 there had been concerns about her two older siblings, starting when the police notified the local authority that the mother was fleeing domestic abuse by Mr Sharif, and that both children had been hit by him.
In 2012 care proceedings were issued. In September 2013 a final hearing took place. Extensive investigations had taken place, including psychological assessments of the parents and the children. The local authority and the Guardian agreed that the children should be placed with the parents, subject to a supervision order. This outcome, in the view of High Court judge Mr Justice Williams (more of whom in a moment), was one which was well within the parameters of predicted decision making on that evidence at the time.
Emergency protection order
In November 2014 the local authority applied for an emergency protection order in respect of the three children, the middle child having attended school with a bite mark on the arm which they said had been caused by the mother. The mother was arrested and charged with ABH, albeit the case was eventually disposed of with a caution. The court made the emergency protection order and the children were taken into care.
Child arrangements order
Further care proceedings followed, based on further allegations of physical injury including a burn with an iron, the middle child being bitten by both Mrs and Mr Sharif, and ongoing conflict between the parents, including violent conduct by the father. The outcome was that the children were to live with the mother under a child arrangements order, and the father was to have supervised contact. Again, Mr Justice Williams felt that this outcome was one which “the vast majority of child protection professionals, lawyers and judges would have predicted at that time faithfully applying the relevant law and practice.”
Variation and concerns
In 2019 the father applied to vary the child arrangements order, raising concerns about the mother’s parenting. A social worker was appointed, and recommended that the children live with their father and his new partner. The court followed this recommendation and ordered that the children should live with their father and step-mother. Mr Justice Williams commented that: “The decision reached at that time on the evidence available was one which to me seems entirely predictable and inevitable.”
We all know what happened next. Sara was murdered by her father and step-mother, and died on 8th August 2023; the cumulative effects of sadistic torture in which she sustained multiple injuries eventually overwhelming her.
In December 2024 her father was sentenced to 40 years in prison for her murder.
Media, transparency and applications
The media then sought to have the judges involved in the historic family court proceedings named. Their application was initially heard by Mr Justice Williams, in the High Court. Concerned that naming the judges would “make them a lightning rod for all the negative attention of the virtual lynch mob”, he refused the application. He pointed out that the senior judiciary accept that they are in the public eye, and apply for the role knowing that it will involve cases of the greatest public interest and accompanying scrutiny. Being identified is part of that territory. For magistrates, the district and circuit bench, however, that is not part of their expectation.
The media appealed to the Court of Appeal, and the appeal was allowed.
So this is the law, but is it right?
I’m not of course disputing the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of the law. I’m just not sure why public servants should be put at risk in this way, for no obvious gain.
Freelance journalists Louise Tickle and Hannah Summers, who applied for the judges to be named, have stated in an article in The Observer that it was about scrutiny, not blame. But of course others will not see it that way. And they will almost certainly not view the decisions of those judges in the way that Mr Justice Williams did.
It is quite possible that the judges will be subjected to a witch-hunt, probably driven by social media outrage, which could lead who knows where. And even if such a witch-hunt does not materialise in this case, there is nothing to say that it will not in any other case.
And if it is about scrutiny, what have we gained?
What the family court historically did in the Sara Sharif case should of course be fully investigated. Lessons may well be learned. But the purpose of that exercise is to establish why the court did what it did, and whether it was wrong, on the basis of the evidence that was placed before it. What does naming the judges add to that exercise? The fact that a decision was made by a judge called John Smith (I will not name them) is surely neither here nor there.
Sir Geoffrey Vos ordered that the judges be given 7 days before their names were published, to allow the courts service to put measures in place to protect them from any potential harm once their names are released. But just what measures could have been put in place in that time? How, in just 7 days, do you stop a determined person from doing them harm? And certainly it must be impossible to prevent threats from being made to the judges and their families – good luck asking Elon Musk to remove such threats from Twitter, or Mark Zuckerberg to remove them from Facebook.
Conclusion
And my final point is this: will the naming of the judges discourage others from joining the judiciary or, perhaps more pertinently, from becoming magistrates (who, after all, perform a public duty in their own time, for no financial reward)? I’m sure that if I were foolish enough to be considering such a move (and to believe that I would ever be accepted) I would now be having second thoughts.
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