A teacher broke down in tears before the Old Bailey jury as she admitted the question millions have been asking in silence: “We saw the bruises. We saw Sara flinch when anyone came near her. But we were afraid… afraid we’d be labelled racist if we pushed too hard.”

Just months before 10-year-old Sara Sharif was tortured to death in her own home, she arrived at school with unmistakable signs: black eyes, a split lip, finger-shaped bruises around her neck, and once turning up with a hijab covering almost her entire face despite never having worn one before. Teachers at St John the Baptist Church of England Primary School in Woking recorded at least 12 incidents of “unexplained injuries” on Sara over two years. On one occasion she was found sobbing in the toilet, telling a friend: “Daddy hits me because I spilled milk.”

Yet not a single report was escalated with the urgency it demanded.

The reason? A phrase repeatedly whispered inside the school, described by a senior teacher as “the elephant in the room”: cultural sensitivity.

“We were trained not to judge immigrant families, especially Pakistani Muslim families,” one teacher testified through tears on Tuesday. “If we called the police or social services too often, we feared being accused of Islamophobia. Once I suggested an emergency referral, the headteacher said to me: ‘Are you sure? This family has already complained about us.’”

The Sharif family had filed an official complaint in 2022 after a teacher asked Sara about a burn on her hand. They accused the school of “interfering in family matters” and “disrespecting Islamic cultural norms around discipline.” The complaint went all the way to Surrey County Council’s senior education board, and the result was that every teacher in the school was sent on a refresher course titled “Recognising Cultural Bias in Child Protection.”

The price of that fear: Sara was sent back to her house of horrors every afternoon.

Another teacher confessed in court: “One time she wore long sleeves in the middle of summer to hide bruises. I asked if she was okay. She looked at me with terrified eyes and whispered, ‘Please don’t tell anyone, you’ll make it worse.’ I stayed silent. I chose to protect my job instead of protecting her.”

Meanwhile, internal school records (released to the court today) show at least eight entries that read: “Family culturally sensitive – approach with caution” or “No formal referral to avoid community conflict.”

Only when Sara’s body was discovered with more than 130 injuries, ten broken bones, iron burns, and human bite marks did people realise the deadly cost of that “caution.”

Sarah Lackenby, former Surrey education inspector, faced brutal questioning today from lawyers representing Sara’s biological mother. She admitted: “We prioritised community cohesion over the safety of one specific child. It was a fatal mistake.”

Outside the court, hundreds of protesters held photos of Sara with the words: “Being afraid of being called racist is not an excuse to ignore a tortured child.”

One huge banner stopped passers-by in their tracks:

“Wokeness doesn’t save lives. Courage does.”

The trial continues, but one truth is now painfully clear: Sara Sharif was not only killed by her father and stepmother. She was also killed by the silence of adults who knew she was in danger, yet chose to bow their heads for fear of being labelled “bigots.”

Today, as footage of the 10-year-old innocently dancing in her living room two years ago was played again on the courtroom screen, no one dared claim that “cultural sensitivity” is justification for indifference.

Sara could not be saved. Let us hope her agony is loud enough that no other child ever dies for the same reason.