Zara Aleena murder: Jordan McSweeney jailed for at least 38 years

A sexual predator branded a “danger to any woman” has been jailed for at least 38 years for the murder and sexual assault of Zara Aleena as she walked home from a night out in east London.

Jordan McSweeney, 29, admitted killing and sexually assaulting the 35-year-old law graduate in Ilford, on 26 June.

Ms Aleena had been “savagely” kicked and stamped on by McSweeney, who followed a number of women that night.

His refusal to be in the dock showed “no spine whatsoever”, the judge said.

In a televised sentencing, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told the Old Bailey that McSweeney – who would not come up from the court’s cells – had carried out the attack with “sickening deliberation”.

Giving him a mandatory life sentence, the judge said she did not believe McSweeney’s actions on the night of the killing were an “aberration”. She described him as a “pugnacious and deeply violent man”.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said of the attack: “It was a steep and sudden escalation of violence that had simmered in his life for many years.”

McSweeney was also given a four-year term for sexual assault, a sentence that will run concurrently.

The defendant, from Dagenham in east London, had only recently been released from prison when he carried out the attack.

He had 28 convictions for 69 crimes, dating back to 2006, ranging from burglary to assaulting the police and including racially motivated offences.

In 2010, when he was a teenager, McSweeney was convicted over an attack on a young woman he had left with a swollen eye. Eleven years later, he was made the subject of a restraining order that barred him from contacting another female victim.

The Old Bailey heard how Ms Aleena was discovered by a couple on a driveway on Cranbrook Road in the aftermath of the assault, which began at about 02:15 BST. She was partially naked and struggling to breathe, having sustained 46 separate injuries in the nine-minute beating.

The 35-year-old received medical treatment for more than an hour on the street before she was taken to the Royal London Hospital. She died later the same morning.

Speaking outside the Old Bailey, Ms Aleena’s aunt Farah Naz said McSweeney’s sentence would protect the public from a man who “cannot and must not live freely in the world”.

She added that his “extreme indifference” to her niece’s life and the law made him a “very dangerous man”.

Ms Naz said: “Today, like every day, we live with the horror that she faced.

“We are deeply touched by the kindness we have felt from so many and this is testament to the power of Zara’s spirit.”

The Old Bailey was shown CCTV footage of the attack – McSweeney’s reason for not appearing in court was that he did not “want to relive” what happened that night, his defence barrister George Carter-Stephenson KC said.

Ms Aleena’s family left the courtroom while footage was shown of her final moments.

The Old Bailey heard how after the fatal assault, McSweeney took away some of Ms Aleena’s clothes, keys, phone and purse – possessions he later discarded.

Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow KC said McSweeney had “treated Zara Aleena’s belongings with the same appalling distain with which he had treated her life”, casting them away like “any other insignificant piece of rubbish”.

After the sentencing hearing, Det Ch Insp Dave Whellams, who led the murder investigation, described McSweeney as “not a sophisticated criminal”.

He said: “This was a ferocious and repetitive attack that shocked even experienced murder detectives.

“He attacked Zara out in the open on a residential street and, other than a clumsy effort to hide a bag containing his belongings, he did not try to cover his tracks.”

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