Serial offender Jordan McSweeney has been sentenced to a minimum of 38 years for sexually assaulting and murdering 35-year-old aspiring lawyer Zara Aleena in Ilford, east London.
Speaking at the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said she has “no doubt” McSweeney intended to kill Ms Aleena and said his decision not to come to court for sentencing showed he had “no spine whatsoever”.
The court heard Ms Aleena suffered 46 separate injuries and was “stamped and strangled to death”.
McSweeney’s abduction, sexual assault and murder of Ms Aleena in June lasted just nine minutes, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb added.
Speaking outside the court, Ms Aleena’s aunt Farah Naz described her niece as “the light and warmth”.
She said: “Today’s sentencing protects the public from a man who cannot and must not live freely in the world… We have some retributions but no peace.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan described Ms Aleena’s murder as a “tragedy in every sense”.
McSweeney’s movements on that night were sinister and determined. CCTV cameras captured him pursuing at least two women before fixating on Zara.
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Having been kicked out of a pub in Ilford town centre just after 11pm on 25 June, McSweeney, 29, set out to find a woman to attack.
Shortly after midnight, he began following one woman.
Dressed in a grey vest, blue jeans and trainers, CCTV footage shows McSweeney striding barely a metre from her as she walks quickly to try to stay away from him.
The woman looks over her shoulder several times, clearly concerned about his behaviour and advances, and walks into a grocery shop.
Woman seen sprinting from McSweeney
McSweeney initially follows her and as he walks around the shop he almost bumps into her.
He appears to try to pretend that this was an accident, but the look on her face shows that she is shocked and frightened.
McSweeney leaves the shop and loiters outside and waits for her.
The woman cautiously exits the shop and McSweeney follows her once again. The entire pursuit lasts 21 minutes.
In the next CCTV footage of them both, the woman is seen sprinting from McSweeney.
She eventually reaches her front door and gets inside safely. McSweeney, in a determined fashion, say officers, looks behind cars and an alleyway in an attempt to find her again.
McSweeney fixated on four women during the night
He gives up and returns to the main road to find and follow a second woman.
Again, he strides behind her and her pace quickens.
In one image captured on CCTV, two passers-by appear to look in their direction, but the killer and the woman walk out of shot.
The second woman also manages to reach her home safely, and McSweeney walks towards Cranbrook Road to chase another.
McSweeney fixated on two other across the course of the night. On one occasion he stared intently at a woman in a chicken shop in Ilford with his hands down his trousers.
‘He was single-minded that he was going to go for a woman that night’
It’s understood McSweeney crossed paths with Zara Aleena at around 2am.
She had been walking home after seeing a friend in town. She was some 15 minutes from her front door when McSweeney found her and began his pursuit.
The court heard Zara missed two calls from the friend she had seen who checked to see if she had arrived home safely. A WhatsApp message she sent to Zara read: “Home hun?”
There was no reply as “by that time”, the prosecution said, “Zara Aleena had been attacked”.
DCI Dave Whellams from the Metropolitan Police said McSweeney was hunting for a victim.
He said: “He was single-minded that he was going to go for a woman that night. He didn’t care where it was. Cranbrook Road is a busy road.
“This was in the early hours, but you have traffic going through there. It’s residential. You have houses down there.
“You have CCTV down there, but this didn’t put him off.”
McSweeney followed Zara for around half a mile and the pair are picked up three times on CCTV cameras. The chilling footage was shown in court.
After 10 minutes of walking behind her, he attacked Zara. CCTV footage shows McSweeney grabbing Zara from behind with an arm over her mouth and the other round her neck.
The horrific attack is captured by two different cameras. She was repeatedly kicked and her body stamped on.
Zara was found by passers-by and taken to hospital where she later died.
‘Ferocity’ of attack caught on CCTV
DCI Whellams explains that part of the murder was captured on CCTV.
“There are grainy images of the attack, but you get the sense of the ferocity of the attack, how brutal it was, and it was sustained,” he said.
After the attack McSweeney walked back to his caravan which was parked at a fairground site in a park near to where he carried out the attack.
The following day at around 3.45pm he was seen disposing of his clothes from the night of the attack.
They were found in the fairground ticket office by police the following day when they came to arrest him 36 hours after the murder.
McSweeney released from prison a week before murder
McSweeney was known to police as a serial offender.
Previously, he had 28 convictions for 69 offences including burglary and assault and had been released from prison just a week before the murder.
Zara was weeks into a new job at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Since the age of five, her family say she had wanted to be a lawyer and was firmly on her path there.
She had just received a distinction in her legal qualification five weeks before she was murdered.
Her aunt, Farah Naz, says the family have been consumed by the trauma of her brutal death.
“We’ve been numb and disbelieving and even now, five-and-a-half months later, even after identifying her, even after touching her dead body, even after burying her – it doesn’t compute and we’re still in trauma.
“All of us feel the same. We talk about it with each other. We’re constantly stuck in a loop of disbelief, constantly stuck in a loop of images in our mind about what happened to her – the horror that she faced.
“The pain she must have endured. For the length that she was attacked. So brutal what was done to her.
“We live in a horror film. We live in something that doesn’t feel real.”
Zara was an ‘outgoing, articulate and funny person’
Zara had dedicated her 35 years to helping others. She volunteered at soup kitchens for the homeless and had even worked to help victims of violence.
“She’s worked with refugees. She’s worked with women who suffered violence at the hands of men, and she’s known in the violence against women and girls industry,” said her aunt.
Her family remember her for being the most loved member of their household.
“She was an assertive and outgoing, articulate and a funny person,” her aunt said.
“She was popular in the family. She was popular in the community. She was popular at school.”
Now their energy is focused on fighting against male violence.
Only then will they feel like they’ve got justice for their adored daughter, niece and granddaughter who was murdered on the streets she grew up on, as she simply walked home.
