The conviction of the father and stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif for her murder leads many of the papers. Police said Urfan Sharif, 43, and Beinash Batool, 30, had subjected Sara to “horrific suffering” before her body was found at the family’s home in Surrey last year. The Daily Express says Sara was “killed by the very adults who should have loved and protected her”.
The Daily Mirror carries a picture of Sara and says she has been described as a “cheerful little soul” whose smile masked the horrors she endured. It adds that she died after a “two years of sickening abuse”.
Sharif showed “no emotion” after a jury found him guilty of his daughter’s murder, according to the Metro. The paper adds that Sharif’s brother, Faisal Malik, 29, was convicted of causing or allowing a child’s death and that the three will be sentenced next week.
The Daily Mail says the courts, police, social services and teachers missed at least 15 chances to prevent Sara’s death, adding that she was “let down by everyone supposed to protect her”. It says Sharif and Batool now face a “lifetime behind bars”.
Sara was “plunged into a life of misery and violence” from the moment she was born, despite being the subject of a child protection plan from birth, according to the Times. The paper says that, as early as 2013, when Sara was just a toddler, council workers observed issues with her development, including that she was unable to “vocalise to protect herself” and, on one occasion, stood facing a wall.
The i quotes Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza saying that Sara was “failed in the starkest terms by the safety net of services around her” and that the case highlights “profound weaknesses in our system”. An independent safeguarding review will now take place to see what more could have been done, the paper adds.
More than 10,000 civil service jobs are to be axed under a new government efficiency drive, the Guardian reports. Multiple sources tell the paper there is an acceptance that the civil service has become too big after expanding to meet the demands of Brexit and the pandemic. There are currently around 513,000 full-time civil servants in central government, its says, up from around 380,000 in 2016.
The Daily Telegraph says the government has been accused of wanting to “bulldoze the Home Counties” as it prepares to set out a major overhaul of planning rules. The paper says changes to be put forward by housing secretary Angela Rayner will allow new estates to be built on the green belt around major cities. It adds that the Conservatives have warned that existing residents could be deprived of a say over new developments.
Qatar’s $500bn sovereign wealth fund is preparing to invest “aggressively” overseas ahead of a windfall from the sale of oil that could double its size, according to the Financial Times. The fund’s chief executive, Mohammed Al-Sowaidi, tells the paper the fund expects to do “bigger-ticket deals” with “more frequency” and will be looking to invest in the US, UK and Asia.
And the Daily Star says scientists have warned that using chatbots and AI could turn humans into “zombies with no memories”. The headline reads: “Robo overlords will make us all lose our thingummy wotsits.”
