BREAKING: Zara Aleena’s killer sentenced to life imprisonment.

Jordan McSweeney who brutally murdered Zara Aleena in Ilford in June this year has been sentenced to life imprisonment to serve 38 years, at the Old Bailey today. There was a delay in court after McSweeney refused to sit in the dock and watch CCTV footage of his actions this summer.

In his absence the court heard how the Dagenham man had followed three other women on Saturday June 25 before finding 35 year old Zara on Cranbrook Road in Ilford. Zara had been on her way home and had chosen to walk, she was just ten minutes away from her home when she was viciously assaulted and left for dead. She was also sexually assaulted and repeatedly stamped on in a horrendous attack that lasted nine minutes that saw McSweeney return twice to remove her phone, under garments and repeatedly stamp on her.

CCTV footage played in court showed predator McSweeney following three other women before he homed in on Zara in the early hours of Sunday morning.

McSweeney pleaded guilty on November 17 this year and was sentenced today at the Old Bailey.

The Dagenham man had been released from prison on licence on June 17 and went on to murder Zara just nine days later. He had been on recall to prison during the time he murdered the 35 year old law graduate.

McSweeney has 28 previous charges against him and 69 different offences.

In summing up the judge Justice Cheema Grubb said that McSweeney was a ‘pugnacious and deeply violent man’ whose absence in court showed he had ‘no spine’.

Zara Aleena’s grandmother Rashda Parveen read out her victim impact statement in court where she said that she hoped Zara’s killer ‘would never find peace.’ She also told the court how broken she felt and that she would have done anything for Zara.