Serial offender gets 38 year minimum jail term for brutal murder of Zara Aleena

Jordan McSweeney received a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years for the brutal killing of law graduate Zara Aleena.

McSweeney, 29, targeted Ms Aleena as she walked home alone from a night out in Ilford, east London, in June 2022.

Ms Aleena, 35 and an aspiring lawyer who had just started work at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, suffered 46 separate injuries after she was abducted, sexually assaulted and stamped and strangled to death.

McSweeney, who made off with his victim's phone and keys, had followed two other women on the same night after being kicked out of a pub before his path crossed with Ms Aleena's in what the judge described as a "fatal coincidence".

He admitted murder and sexual assault and was handed a life sentence with a minimum of 38 years. A four-year sentence, to run concurrently, was imposed for the sexual assault.

Passing sentence at the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb criticised McSweeney, a former bareknuckle fighter with a string of previous convictions, for refusing to come into the dock to be sentenced, saying he had "no spine whatsoever".

She added that she had "no doubt" that McSweeney had intended to kill Ms Aleena.

The judge's sentencing remarks can be read in full at: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-...

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