Judges involved in Sara Sharif family court proceedings named
The judges who oversaw family court proceedings involving Sara Sharif in the years before her death have been named following a Court of Appeal ruling.
Judges Alison Raeside, Peter Nathan and Sally Williams were all involved in proceedings related to the 10-year-old between 2013 and 2019.
Sara was placed in the home of her father, Urfan Sharif, and her stepmother, Beinash Batool, following the last of three sets of proceedings.
Judge Raeside, who remains an active judge, dealt with the majority of the hearings related to Sara.
Judges Nathan and Williams – who have both since retired – were involved to a lesser degree.
Several media organisations appealed against a restriction on naming judges.
Sara, 10, was murdered by Sharif and Batool in Woking, Surrey, in 2023. They were jailed for life last year.
Urfan Sharif. Pic: Surrey Police
The first set of proceedings heard Surrey County Council had a “number of concerns in relation to the care that (Olga Sharif) and Mr Sharif provide Z and U (Sara’s siblings) and are likely to provide to Sara”.
Judge Raeside approved the children being placed under supervision orders, meaning they stayed in their parents’ care.
That decision was supported by the council, the children’s guardian and Sara’s parents.
In November 2014, after child 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, Sara’s mother, later accepted a caution after being charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The following day, Judge Raeside extended the same order for a week, with Judge Williams making an interim care order for Sara and one of her siblings as proceedings continued in 2015.
That was Judge Williams’s only involvement in the case.
At the end of the same set of proceedings, a hearing before Judge Raeside was told the local authority was “extremely concerned” that Sara and child U were “likely to suffer significant emotional and physical harm in their parents’ care”, as both alleged the other was violent.
Despite those allegations, however, the council still concluded “the risk can be managed” if Sara was returned to her mother’s care, with supervised contact with her father.
That decision was supported by the children’s guardian, while Judge Raeside approved the plan in May 2015.
Sara was moved to the property where she was later murdered in 2019.
She had made accusations of physical abuse by her mother, which were never proven.
In a report for a final hearing in October 2019, a social worker told the court 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”.
That move was also supported by the children’s guardian and Sara’s parents and was approved by Judge Raeside.
Beinash Batool. Pic: Surrey Police
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The press was previously barred from reporting the names of the judges and other professionals involved in the case.
The High Court ruled they had “acted within the parameters that law and social work practice set for them”.
However, the Court of Appeal ruled last week that the media could name the judges in the interests of open justice.
It had heard that the judges wanted to “convey their profound shock, horror and sadness about what happened to Sara Sharif”.
Surrey County Council was involved with the Sharif family for several years before Sara’s death.
Concerns about Sara’s care were raised within a week of her birth in 2013, while her parents were known to social services as early as 2010.
Surrey County Council repeatedly raised “significant concerns” that the child was likely to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents.
While there were the three sets of family court proceedings mentioned above, allegations that Urfan Sharif was physically abusing Sara and her siblings were never tested in court.
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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