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The family of Zara Aleena say they have ‘retribution but no peace’ following the sentencing of her killer.
Jordan McSweeney was caught on CCTV in Ilford, London drunkenly lurching in the street after being ejected from a pub.
He followed three women and confronted a fourth before he targeted 35-year-old Ms Aleena as she walked home from a night out early on Sunday June 26.
In a televised sentencing today, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb jailed McSweeney for life with a minimum of 38 years.
Speaking outside the Old Bailey on behalf of Zara Aleena’s family, her 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 questions to be answered still and there are lessons to be learned and changes to be made.
Farah Naz, Zara Aleena’s aunt reads a statement outside the Old Bailey in London (Picture: PA)
Protesters from Million Women Rise came together ahead of this afternoon’s sentencing (Picture: PA)
‘Zara’s life was senselessly and brutally crushed. Today like every day we live with the horror Zara was forced to face.
‘We live with the profound loss each day and each day was are destroyed a little more.’
Ms Aleena was minutes from home when McSweeney dragged her into a driveway on Cranbrook Road where she was kicked, stamped on, and sexually assaulted before being left for dead.
Oliver Glasgow KC, prosecuting, told the court she ‘stood no chance of survival’ after being attacked ‘with a savagery that is almost impossible to believe’.
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Jordan McSweeney has been jailed for life following the horrific murder (Picture: PA)
McSweeney, who pleaded guilty to murder and sexual assault, refused to leave his cell to be sentenced because he did not want to watch the CCTV of what he did.
The judge said McSweeney had not been ‘carried away’ or ‘overtaken by an uncontrollable urge’ but was ‘wholly aware of what he was doing’, delivering ‘repeated heavy blows’ with ‘sickening deliberation’.
‘After satisfying his lust he then proceeded to destroy the woman he had just degraded,’ she added.
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‘Today’s sentencing protects the public from a man who cannot and must not live freely in the world.’