Three judges who oversaw family court proceedings related to the care of Sara Sharif can be named next week, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Mr Justice Williams issued a ruling last year that the three judges involved in historic family court cases related to Sara, as well as social workers and guardians, could not be named due to a “real risk” of harm from a “virtual lynch mob”.
News organisations had previously appealed against Mr Williams’s decision on the grounds of transparency about the court case relating to the murder of the 10-year-old.
Sara’s father Urfan Sharif and her stepmother Beinash Batool were jailed for life in December for years of horrific “torture” and “despicable” abuse that led to her death.
On Friday, Sir Geoffrey Vos said: “In the circumstances of this case, the judge had no jurisdiction to anonymise the historic judges either on 9 December 2024 or thereafter. He was wrong to do so.”
He added that “if, notwithstanding the lack of evidence to that effect, the judge was concerned about their being named, there were other, more appropriate, ways to protect them”.
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Sir Geoffrey added on Friday that “judges will sit on many types of case in which feelings run high” and “where there may be risks to their personal safety”.
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“It is up to the authorities with responsibility for the courts to put appropriate measures in place to meet these risks, depending on the situation presented by any particular case,” he said.
“The first port of call is not, and cannot properly be, the anonymisation of the judge’s name.”
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He also said that Mr Williams “got carried away” in his ruling and “behaved unfairly” toward two journalists. He then noted that the High Court judge made an “unwarranted” sarcastic remark about a 2021 Channel 4 programme.
“The mistake the judge made was to think that he could properly trawl through his own experiences to create a case for anonymising the judges,” Sir Geoffrey added.
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal heard the judges who oversaw court proceedings had “serious concerns” about the risks posed to them and their families if they were named.
Mr Williams previously also argued that holding individuals involved in those proceedings responsible was “equivalent to holding the lookout on the Titanic responsible for its sinking”.
Previously released documents showed that Surrey County Council first had contact with Sharif and Sara’s mother, Olga Sharif, in 2010 – more than two years before Sara was born.
At the time, the council had received “referrals indicative of neglect” relating to her two older siblings, known only as Z and U.
The authority began care proceedings concerning Z and U in January 2013, and involved Sara within a week of her birth.
Between 2013 and 2015, several allegations of abuse were made that were never tested in court, with one hearing in 2014 told that the council had “significant concerns” about the children returning to Sharif, “given the history of allegations of physical abuse of the children and domestic abuse with Mr Sharif as the perpetrator”.
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In 2019, a judge approved Sara moving to live with her father at the home in Woking where she later died after a campaign of abuse.
Sharif and Batool were jailed for life for Sara’s murder in December, with minimum terms of 40 years and 33 years.
Her uncle, Faisal Malik, was jailed for 16 years after being convicted of causing or allowing her death.
