The aunt of murdered law graduate Zara Aleena has said her killer should become “anonymous” because it is the “victims who bring about change”, after an inquest found failings “across multiple agencies” contributed to her death.
Jordan McSweeney, a sexual predator with 28 previous convictions, murdered Zara, 35, as she walked home from a night out in Ilford, east London, in the early hours of June 26, 2022.
Zara’s aunt Farah Naz said her niece’s face “should be the one remembered.”
Talking about Good morning Great Britain on Friday. Farah said: “I think it’s important that someone like him becomes anonymous, that we forget the face.” Throughout history, many of us will remember the faces of the great killers and not the victims, and it is the victims who drive change.
‘Zara is saving lives right now, thanks to her changes have been made to probation, thanks to her changes have already been made to police practices and there will be more.’
Murdered law graduate Zara Aleena’s aunt Farah Naz (pictured) told Good Morning Britain that her killer should become “anonymous” because it is the “victims who bring about change”.
“She’s saving lives, so it’s her face that should be remembered, her name should go, it should be removed, and she shouldn’t have any joy in seeing her face on paper, she shouldn’t have that status. In society we have a certain fascination with bad boys and that needs to go.”
McSweeney had been released from prison on license just nine days before the murder, but had breached his conditions and was recalled to prison on June 22.
Farah spoke of the “many mistakes” that led to her nieces’ murder, saying it “doesn’t seem credible.”
She said: ‘It’s been devastating, three weeks listening to people in the witness box talk about failure after failure, so many failures it doesn’t seem credible that there could be so many failures consistently across all agencies.
“I think a lot of the errors are because he was not assessed correctly, he was not assessed as a high-risk individual who could cause serious harm. There were many opportunities to review that assessment. Also, the risks of the perpetrators change over time. time, so they should not be supervised and visited when they are in prison because the risk increases.
Through tears, Farah explained that Zara’s family’s life is “boring” without her and said she was the “light.”
She said: ‘Even after two years, it’s not a long time, we are devastated, she was the light in our home, life feels black and white and boring without her. She was the antithesis of him.
Zara was murdered as she walked home from a late night party in Ilford, east London, in the early hours of 26 June 2022.
Farah noted that her niece is the one who ‘saves lives’ and changes laws after her murder, so her killer’s face should be forgotten on GMB on Friday.
“We have lost someone we loved deeply. We are half the people we were. A lot of time has been lost, his life has been lost and so have we.”
Police were given powers to arrest McSweeney days before he killed Zara, but delays in the necessary paperwork meant police were unable to arrest him before it was too late.
Zara died in hospital from a blunt force injury to the head and neck compression, the jury was told.
Local coroner Nadia Persaud paid tribute to Zara, who died two years ago, saying: “I would like to send my sincere condolences to Zara’s family and friends.”
A video montage of photographs and videos from Zara’s entire life was played at East London Coroner’s Court on Wednesday.
McSweeney received a life sentence with a minimum sentence of 38 years at the Old Bailey in December 2022 after admitting the murder and sexual assault of Ms Aleena.
In November 2023, he won a Court of Appeal appeal to reduce the minimum sentence of his life sentence.
Ms Persaud had asked jurors to consider whether any failure by the prison and probation services or the Metropolitan Police contributed to Zara’s death.
Police were unable to contact McSweeney after he was released on license on June 17, 2022, but parole waited five days before beginning his return to prison.
Jordan McSweeney, 29, a sexual predator with 28 previous convictions, murdered Zara, 35.
On the day he was released, he missed his parole appointment and his mother told staff he had passed out drunk at home.
She was rescheduled twice, but McSweeney did not attend either appointment and when officers approached her mother again, she said she did not know where she was.
Despite the lack of contact, its withdrawal did not begin until June 22 and the withdrawal report was signed on June 24, 2022.
Police were given powers to arrest McSweeney at 4.10pm that same day. In the early hours of 26 June, McSweeney murdered Zara.
His newly qualified probation worker, Austin Uwaifo, said McSweeney should have been classed as high risk and, if so, he would have pushed for him to have been recalled to prison sooner.
Mr Uwaifo said: ‘At the time, I thought that since he went out on Friday, my thought was to give him the opportunity to come back; possibly he went out and decided, for whatever reason, to go out and get drunk.’
Uwaifo said the probation office was not staffed over the weekend but would have requested a quicker after-hours emergency removal if McSweeney had been classified as high risk.
The police officer who took action to remove McSweeney said initial investigations into his whereabouts were closed prematurely and more checks should have been carried out.
Metropolitan Police operations sergeant Ian Batten said he did not foresee McSweeney being a risk to the public after receiving a return to prison notice for him on June 24, 2022.
Sergeant Batten also said he was unaware that initial investigations into McSweeney’s whereabouts were closed before the end of his shift.
