More than 480 children in England died or seriously harmed by abuse, report reveals

By Ellie Ng and Jessica Coates, Reporters12th December 2024News EnglandChild Abuse, Child Protection, Childrens Services, Domestic Abuse / Violence, News England, Top Stories

More than 480 children in England died or were seriously harmed by abuse or neglect, a new report has revealed, a day after 10-year-old Sara Sharif’s father and stepmother were found guilty of her “harrowing” murder.

Data from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel revealed that 485 children were affected by serious incidents between April 1 2023 and March 31 2024.

Panel chairwoman Annie Hudson (pictured) reflected on Sara’s “harrowing” case as she said the design of the child protection system must change, calling for the implementation of multi-agency children teams in every local authority.

A campaign of abuse was waged against Sara in her home, with the little girl suffering more than 70 injuries shortly before she was found dead at her house in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year.

She also had multiple unexplained fractures in 25 locations on her body which experts said were most likely caused by multiple episodes of blunt force trauma inflicted over several weeks.

Authorities failed to identify Sara was at risk for years.

Her father, Urfan Sharif, had repeated contact with Surrey Social Services and police, and Sara’s school made a referral to social services five months before her death but the case was closed within days.

Ms Hudson told BBC Breakfast: “I just really want to acknowledge the harrowing story about what’s happened to Sara and the trial this week, and it’s important that the perpetrators of what is just unimaginable cruelty have been brought to justice.

“It is important that, in time, there will be a forensic and robust examination of what happened and how well agencies work together and learning from that.”

Of the 330 serious incident notifications received by the panel, almost half were for children who died (46%) and more than a third involved babies under one.

More than half of incidents involving the death or serious harm of a child under five involved a parent or relevant adult with a mental health condition (57%), while 16% of children died by suicide – with 92% of the children who took their own lives recorded as having a mental health condition.

The report highlighted the need to support children with mental health needs, with more than a fifth involved in the notifications found to have a mental health condition – most of them aged between 11 and 17 but the youngest aged six.

It also called for greater measures to improve partnerships between adult and children mental health services to protect pre-school aged children whose parents suffer from poor mental health.

According to the data, 43% of incidents featured a parent with an addiction to, or who misuses, alcohol and/or drugs.

Almost a quarter of serious incidents occurred outside the home by people who were not a member of the child’s family, including gang violence, child sexual abuse and child criminal exploitation.

On the most important issue identified from the report, Ms Hudson told BBC Breakfast: “Too often there are breakdowns in communication and the way in which information about what’s happening in a child’s life is not shared and put together in terms of the pieces of a jigsaw and understanding what’s happened in terms of the history of the life of a child or a family.”

She said agencies involved in child protection are often working in their own “silos and parameters” and highlighted the need for teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers, police and other professionals to share information to understand what is happening in a child’s life.

The panel is calling on the Government to implement multi-agency children teams in every local authority, creating “one single team or point” where child protection concerns will be investigated.

Maria Neophytou, interim chief executive at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, called on the Government to ensure family support services were more accessible and affordable.

“It is always deeply disturbing to see how many children have died or been seriously harmed as a consequence of abuse and neglect in the last year,” she said.

“This report acts as a powerful reminder of the tragic consequences when children’s best interests are not placed at the heart of the decisions that directly affect them, whether by frontline safeguarding partners in health, children’s social care or policing, or by Government officials and policymakers.”