Man Sexually Assaulted, Strangled And Stamped A law Graduate To Death- Who Is The Killer Jordan McSweeney?
Man Sexually Assaulted, Strangled And Stamped A law Graduate To Death- Who Is The Killer Jordan McSweeney?
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Man Sexually Assaulted, Strangled And Stamped Zara Aleenae To Death- Who Is The Killer Jordan McSweeney?

 

Haunting CCTV footage shows the savage killer of Zara Aleena prowling the streets for potential victims the same night he brutally murdered the 35-year-old.

Before he sexually raped, strangled, and stamped the law graduate to death on June 26 of this year, Jordan McSweeney was seen trailing four other women.

The 29-year-old had just recently been freed from prison when he was sentenced today to a minimum of 38 years in prison for the assault.

Less than 24 hours after the murder, authorities found him at his filthy caravan after a bloody fingerprint connected him to the crime.

The’spineless’ murderer declined to leave the cells on Wednesday when he was sentenced at the Old Bailey because he did not want to relive the assault, which was fully documented on CCTV.

Additional footage obtained by the Metropolitan Police showed one of his potential victims running for her life as McSweeney followed her.

CCTV also captured the 29-year-old targeting another woman who was helped by two passing men.

The afternoon after the attack McSweeney was seen walking across a fairground wearing same vest and carrying a bag.

Jordan McSweeney was seen on CCTV targeting at least four different women in the early hours on June 26

Jordan McSweeney was seen on CCTV targeting at least four different women in the early hours on June 26

The killer pleaded guilty to the 35-year-old's murder and sexual assault last month and was sentenced at the Old Bailey today

The killer pleaded guilty to the 35-year-old’s murder and sexual assault last month and was sentenced at the Old Bailey today

Met police have released images of murderer Jordan McSweeney from the night her killed Zara Aleena

Met police have released images of murderer Jordan McSweeney from the night her killed Zara Aleena

He followed one woman who tried to hide in a local shop and then followed her after she left

He followed one woman who tried to hide in a local shop and then followed her after she left

The killer chased after a woman but lost her, shortly before her targeted Ms Aleena

The killer chased after a woman but lost her, shortly before her targeted Ms Aleena

A CCTV image issued by the Metropolitan Police of sexual predator Jordan McSweeney just before he attacked Zara Aleena

A CCTV image issued by the Metropolitan Police of sexual predator Jordan McSweeney just before he attacked Zara Aleena

The afternoon after the attack McSweeney was seen at a fairground wearing the same clothes and holding a bag

The afternoon after the attack McSweeney was seen at a fairground wearing the same clothes and holding a bag

Jordan McSweeney ambushed Zara Aleena and punched her in the back of the head before dragging the 35-year-old into a driveway and kicking her as she lay on the ground

Zara Aleena (pictured), 35, who had recently started work at the Royal Courts of Justice, died after she was ambushed as she walked home in the early hours of the morning, she was punched in the back of the head, then strangled

Zara Aleena (pictured), 35, who had recently started work at the Royal Courts of Justice, died after she was ambushed as she walked home in the early hours of the morning, she was punched in the back of the head, then strangled

McSweeney was kicked out of the Great Spoon of Ilford Wetherspoons pub on June 25, just after 11pm, for harassing a female member of the bar staff.

He was shown on camera welcoming women at the pub’s entrance, enclosing them in his arms without their permission, and making an attempt to kiss them.

Although she made it obvious that she was not interested, he kept going back to the bar and bugging her, according to prosecutor Oliver Glasgow KC.

He was seen following a woman after leaving the bar. When she realized she was being followed, she went into a minimarket to get away from McSweeney.

According to testimony given in court, he waited outside for some time before entering the store and hiding behind a vegetable display until she left.

McSweeney persisted in pursuing the woman and lost her when she took a detour down a side street to avoid him.

‘That young woman had a very lucky escape since, had she been caught, by Jordan McSweeney, she would have been attacked and killed’, said Mr Glasgow.

Zara Aleena was brutally attacked by McSweeney as she walked down Cranbrook Road in Ilford on June 26 this year

Zara Aleena was brutally attacked by McSweeney as she walked down Cranbrook Road in Ilford on June 26 this year

McSweeney’s next target was a woman in the Samiz Chicken Shop in Romford Road –Ā CCTV shows him putting his hand down his trousers and staring at her.

He began following her after just left the shop with her takeaway until he was distracted by another woman –Ā who he spoke to briefly and put his hand between her legs before she walked away.

McSweeney began trailing another woman, who fortunately was able to enter a building on the street after realizing she was in danger.

The victim might have been saved when two passing guys stopped and stared when they saw McSweeney pursuing a woman and the scenario that was occurring.

The following 50 minutes were spent by McSweeney skulking up and down Cranbrook Road. He pursued another woman, who was forced to flee into a nearby house.

He turned to follow Ms. Aleena when he first spotted her shortly after two in the morning.

Jordan McSweeney waited for his chance to attack, and as soon as he thought no one was looking, he did just that, according to Mr. Glasgow.

McSweeney attempted to follow several women on June 26 before he murdered Zara Aleena

McSweeney attempted to follow several women on June 26 before he murdered Zara Aleena

At 2:15am he grabbed her neck from behind, using his other hand to cover her mouth.

He then dragged her into the driveway of 286 Cranbrook Road and took her to the ground.

How a bloody fingerprint helped police track McSweeney in hours

 

Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams described how Metropolitan Police officers moved in to arrest sexual predator Jordan McSweeney while he slept in a caravan at a fairground – just one day after he killed Ms Aleena.

Mr. Whellams claimed that as soon as he was handed the essential information about the case he and his team were to take on, his mind started to race.

It was a stranger who attacked, therefore there isn’t really a suspect, he said. It is a mystery as to whodunit. I am aware that the victim is a lone female and that she is moving through a busy residential neighborhood with traffic and foot traffic, but someone has nonetheless staged a very brutal attack.

Whether there is CCTV, forensics, house-to-house surveillance, or witnesses who may have seen anything, “I have to establish the priorities and where I think the best likelihood of wins might be gained.”

Working backwards from the crime scene, officers recovered grainy CCTV footage of the attack on Ms Aleena and the minutes that led to it.

Mr Whellams said: ‘We pick Zara up in Cranbrook Road. He is behind her for a considerable period of time. We’re talking hundreds of yards.

‘There comes a point where he catches up with her and he must make his mind up that he is going to attack whether he thinks there’s nobody around or whatever, he attacks then.

‘He jumps on her and he drags her into a front garden. It’s absolutely shocking.

‘He’s in the front garden of a house, a residential house, where people are in. There would have been an altercation, there would have been a lot of noise but he wasn’t worried about that. He just single-mindedly wanted to attack.

‘You get the sense of the ferocity of the attack, how brutal it was. And it was brutal. And it was sustained.

‘We’re talking about a grown man of proportionate size against a small, slightly built woman who had no idea – this was completely out of blue.’

By tracking the killer’s movements on CCTV, police were able to circulate a clear image which produced around half a dozen possible suspects.

A forensic examination of the scene also uncovered a fingerprint in blood which, which due to the poor quality, initially failed to provide a match on the national database.

However, details of the six potential suspects were sent to a fingerprint expert who compared each one and came up with a positive match to the bloody print.

Mr Whellams said: ‘The fingerprint expert said that’s a match for Jordan McSweeney, and that was it. That was a crucial piece of information.’

Having retraced the attacker’s route from Cranbrook Road to a fairground in Valentines Park, an officer was deployed to ask if anyone knew him.

Mr Whellams said: ‘Lo and behold, yes, they said that’s Jordan McSweeney.

‘And then the next question was, ‘Do you know where he is?’

‘The answer to that was yes, he’s in that caravan asleep. So that was how quick it all took place.’

When officers went to make the arrest, McSweeney appeared ‘confused’ and ‘dazed’.

In his police interview, he remained silent and gave no explanation or sign of remorse when shown the CCTV.

But an examination of McSweeney’s caravan and the fairground provided further overwhelming evidence.

It included a bag deposited under the skirting of another caravan containing his bloody clothes and shoes.

Mr Glasgow said: ‘She did all she could to fight him off, but she had no idea he was behind her and she must have been terrified as the bigger and stronger Jordan McSweeney dragged her into the darkness and out of sight from any potential rescuer.’

After a struggle she was rendered unconscious. In CCTV he can be seen removing some of her clothing and going in between her spread legs.

Mr Glasgow said: ‘Jordan McSweeney stands and begins to stamp onto Zara Aleena’s body with a force that is almost unimaginable.

‘Indeed, if it were not for the indistinct CCTV footage, it would be hard to believe that anyone could treat another human being in such a violent and shocking manner.

‘Initially satisfied, he leaves her broken body appears to move across to her clothes and then leaves the driveway of 286 Cranbrook Road with something in his hands.’

He returned in a few moments and continued to stamp on her body, steadying himself against a concrete banister.

Mr Glasgow said: ‘As before, Jordan McSweeney emerges from the driveway, turns left, walks a few metres, stops, pauses, turns around and walks back to where Zara Aleena’s body is lying.

‘Once back beside her body, Jordan McSweeney bends down and appears to be looking for something or doing something to Zara Aleena.

‘He then stamps on her for a final and utterly gratuitous time before walking away without pausing to think about what he has just done.’

Ms Aleena, who was training to be a solicitor, was found with severe head injuries and struggling to breathe.

Emergency services were called at 2.44am but she died in hospital from compression to the neck and blunt force to the head.

Mr Glasgow told the court: ‘At the time she was attacked, Zara Aleena was only minutes from her front door and she had every right to feel safe on the street, streets where she lived and which she knew well, but once she had become a target for this defendant that right was taken from her in a terrifying and ruthless manner, and, quite simply, she stood no chance of survival.’

Police identified McSweeney from bloody fingerprints at the scene and chilling CCTV footage which was played in court.

Officers traced him to a caravan on a fairground in the nearby Valentines Park where he was arrested the next day.

While in custody, McSweeney was violent towards officers after refusing to answer questions.

The court was told the prolific thief and burglar, drug dealer and bare knuckle fighter who had a history of violence towards ex-partners.

He had been released from prison on licence on June 17 just nine days before the murder.

In that time, his licence had been revoked after he failed to attend any meeting with probation workers.

Last month, McSweeney, 29, of Dagenham, Essex, pleaded guilty to Ms Aleena’s murder and sexual assault.

On Wednesday, he refused to come up from the cells at the Old Bailey to be sentenced saying he did not want to watch footage of what he had done.

In a televised sentencing on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb jailed him in his absence for life with a minimum term of 38 years.

She said: ‘The defendant had the physical advantages of strength and surprise.

‘In everything else, she was better than him.

‘She was talented, spirited, intelligent and kind. Spending the evening with her friend she had done nothing wrong, taken no mis-steps, shown no lack of sense.

‘She was simply a happy, healthy woman living her life in what most Londoners think of as the best city in the world.’

McSweeney’s decision not to come to court to face justice showed he had ‘no spine whatsoever’, she added.

Speaking outside court, Ms Aleena’s aunt Farah Naz said: ‘Today’s sentencing protects the public from a man who cannot and must not live freely in the world.

‘His extreme indifference towards Zara’s life and to the law makes him a very dangerous man. We have some retribution but no peace.

There are still unanswered questions, lessons to be learned, and adjustments to be made.

“Zara’s life was violently and senselessly crushed.” We continue to deal with the misery that Zara was made to through every day.

We lost her and more, Ms. Naz stated in court. A family is slain every time a person is killed. Additionally, when a person is killed, humanity is also killed.

Everything she was, everything she had worked so hard to achieve, and every aspiration were all shattered by someone else’s sense of entitlement who she didn’t even know.

She was only going home on foot.

Ms Aleena’s elderly grandmother Rashda Parveen sobbed as she read out her victim statement in court, saying she hoped the killer ‘would never find peace’.

After his arrest, McSweeney refused to answer questions but told officers he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
After pleading guilty to the savage attack, MailOnline was able to reveal Ms Aleena's murder was the culmination of a string of similar attacks on women

After his arrest, McSweeney refused to answer questions but told officers he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Met Police tried to arrest McSweeney the day before he murderedĀ Zara Aleena

 

June 17 –Ā McSweeney is released from prison on licence

June 22Ā – The Probation Service commences recall proceedings after McSweeney misses two appointments

June 24 – Met Police are made aware of theĀ recall proceedings

June 25Ā – Police go to arrest McSweeney at an addressed linked to him, but he was not there

June 25Ā – McSweeney is kicked out of a pub for making ‘persistent advances’ to a female member of bar staff

June 26 –Ā Ā McSweeney follows at least two other women before he violently attacked and sexually assaulted Zara Aleena

June 26 – Emergency services are called at 2:44am and Ms Aleena is taken to hospital where she died later that morning from multiple injuries

June 27 – McSweeney is arrested

November 18Ā – The 29-year-old pleads guilty to murder and sexual assault

December 14 – McSweeney is sentenced

Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams said McSweeney had been driven by a desire for sexual gratification and had shown no remorse.

Mr Whellams said: ‘The first thing that you get from this particular case is Sweeney’s determination, his focus. He is one track, he’s just going to follow females.

Before attacking Zara, we witness him following at least two females. He is also persistent. He isn’t being put off, which worries me.

These women become aware of his attention and choose to avoid him by entering stores, running down streets, and running past their own addresses.

However, he is unaffected. He then moves on to a different person before moving on to Zara.

After being released from prison on June 17, McSweeney had his license revoked because he had neglected to attend his probation meetings.

Police went to his family address around a day before the murder but discovered he was not there.

Who Is The Killer Jordan McSweeney

 

He 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.

 

 

Jordan McSweeney will be sentenced later today for the murder of Zara Aleena, which occurred just the day after Met Police went to arrest him

Jordan McSweeney's ex-girlfriend Samantha Bryan (pictured together) told MailOnline she regrets not pressing assault charges against him who went on to kill aspiring lawyer Zara Aleena earlier this year

Jordan McSweeney’s ex-girlfriend Samantha Bryan (pictured together) told MailOnline she regrets not pressing assault charges against him who went on to kill aspiring lawyer Zara Aleena earlier this year

McSweeney beat Samantha for years, leaving her with injuries like this one when he booted her in the face

McSweeney beat Samantha for years, leaving her with injuries like this one when he booted her in the face

Ms Bryan, 30, says Jordan is a Āæwannabe gangsterĀæ - who made his own posters on Facebook

Ms Bryan, 30, says Jordan is a ‘wannabe gangster’ – who made his own posters on Facebook

The ex-girlfriend of the murderer revealed that she endured four years of violence and controlling behaviour at his hands before summoning up the courage to leave him for good.

But Samantha Bryan, 30, now regrets not pressing assault charges against the ‘wannabe gangster’ who went on to kill aspiring lawyer Zara Aleena earlier this year.

Ms Bryan told MailOnline that McSweeney once stamped on her so badly, it left an imprint of his trainer on her face – just as he did to Ms Aleena, who suffered fatal head injuries.

Read Also:Ā DJ Stephen ā€˜tWitch’ Boss Wife, Children And Net Worth- What Was His Death Cause?

Describing going to the police she said: ‘I gave them a statement, telling them just what he’d done, but I dropped the charges. I just couldn’t go through with it. At the time, my thinking was that I’d at last got rid of him from my life after four horrible years and I was still scared he – or one of his acolytes – would seek some sort of vengeance.

‘Knowing what he did to the poor woman in Ilford, I wish I had gone ahead with it. Jordan is nothing more than a wannabe gangster with no respect whatsoever for women. I hope he’s locked up for the rest of his life – no woman is safe around him.’

McSweeney would also punch, kick and bite her and once threw her out into the street after snatching her phone, forcing her to borrow a mobile from a homeless man so she could call her mother to collect her.

And Ms Bryan, who became pregnant by McSweeney, also told how he would cynically cuddle up to her at night – only in order to hide her wounds from his aunt when the young couple stayed with her.

He can only be defined as a menace to women, the top officer stated. His overall attitude, the way he is, how focused he is, and how unconcerned he is.

“We really can’t let someone like him out on the streets.” I think women will always be dangerous.

Even though McSweeney had a long history of minor crimes, there were warning signs before to the murderous night.

But a CCTV capture from earlier in the evening revealed he had pursued two other ladies after leaving a bar while inebriated and maybe drugged.

Before he spotted a lone woman, the video showed him lurching in the road and nearly being hit by a car.

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