Justice system had part in Zara's death, aunt says

Zara Aleena, 35, was attacked as she walked home in east London in 2022

Zara Aleena’s family is “tortured” with the thought that her “death was preventable”, an inquest has heard.

Jordan McSweeney killed the 35-year-old law graduate as she walked home from a night out in Ilford, east London, in June 2022.

McSweeney was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years at the Old Bailey in December 2022 after admitting Ms Aleena’s murder and sexual assault.

Ms Aleena's aunt, Farah Naz, told the inquest a "crumbling justice system" contributed to the death of her niece.

McSweeney had been released from prison on licence on 17 June 2022 and, after breaching the conditions of his licence, a decision was made to recall him to prison on 24 June 2022, two days before he killed Ms Aleena.

Ms Naz told the jury at East London Coroner’s Court in Walthamstow that the family is “tortured with the thought Zara’s death was preventable”.

She added that her niece’s murder highlighted “the crumbling justice system meant to protect us”.

Zara Aleena was "not just surviving but thriving" before she was attacked

Ms Naz said: “Since her death we have been campaigning so that our daughters, sisters, friends can be safe and protected as Zara never was. This is Zara’s legacy.”

She became emotional as she told the jury of her niece’s “sparkling eyes and curly jet black hair” and “glorious laughter”.

'Wildest dreams'

Ms Naz said Ms Aleena was a carer for her mother and grandmother, “the rock of our family” and it was the “proudest moment for all of us” when she was offered a job as a legal assistant at the Royal Courts of Justice.

She described her niece as “a carefree spirit with the most caring heart” and said she had worked to help resettle refugees in the UK.

Ms Naz said: “2022 was to be her year to live her wildest dreams. She wanted to buy her own home, find Mr Right and to have children. The future looked bright.”

Farah Naz said her niece “lost the right to simply walk home” on the night she was murdered

Ms Naz said Ms Aleena “wasn’t just surviving, she was thriving”, adding: “Zara walked everywhere and one night she walked home from an evening out with a friend, she was sexually assaulted and murdered. She was 35 years old.

“She believed that a woman should be allowed to walk home, and her dreams, her future was brutally taken.”

Coroner Nadia Persaud said the purpose of the inquest was to “consider the circumstance by which Zara came by her death, which will include whether any actions or omissions of state bodies contributed to her death”.

The jury was told that McSweeney was 29 at the time of the attack and had received his first custodial sentence at the age of 13, with much of his adult years spent in prison or in the community under licence.

The inquest also heard from Kim Thornden-Edwards, chief probation officer and senior leader of the prison and probation service in England and Wales.

She told the inquest the Probation Service accepts McSweeney should have been considered as high risk from 2021.

Put to her by the coroner that it was considered McSweeney's risk should have been high from 2021, Ms Thornden-Edwards said: "I don't have an issue with HMIP's assessment that at the time Jordan McSweeney was high risk.

"What I would say is that the assessment of Jordan McSweeney has some complexities and nuances to it."

She added: "The majority of his offending history is acquisitive, burglaries and thefts."

She said the threshold between medium and high risk is "one of the most challenging".

Ms Thornden-Edwards also told jurors probation staff were told to be curious about information given in risk assessments, and were encouraged not to “under or over inflate, but be really clear.”

She added people cannot be given an electronic monitoring tag without an address, but had McSweeney had accommodation it "should've been a consideration".

Ms Persaud, reading a statement from a consultant forensic pathologist, said the cause of Ms Aleena's death was blunt force head injury and neck compression.

The inquest is expected to last for four weeks.

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