Failures “across multiple agencies” contributed to the death of a woman who was murdered as she walked home from a night out in east London two years ago, an inquest jury has found.
Zara Aleena – a 35-year-old law graduate – was killed by Jordan McSweeney in Ilford in the early hours of 26 June 2022, nine days after he was released from prison.
The jury found “Zara’s death was contributed to by the failure of multiple state agencies to act in accordance to policies and procedures – to share intelligence, accurately assess risk of serious harm, (and) act and plan in response to the risk in a sufficient, timely and coordinated way.”
There were “significant failures to appropriately assess risk by HMPPS (HM Prison and Probation Service) – the risk registered at medium and should have been high from February 2021”, it said.
These included failure to identify “significant events” that should have led to the risk being re-evaluated, and that information sharing, decision making, supervision and training were “inadequate”.
The jury added that there was “failure to define, understand and execute roles and responsibilities across multiple agencies to manage the offender effectively.”
“Attempts (by the Metropolitan Police) to arrest the offender post-recall were impeded by a number of factors, including inaccurate data on the recall and a lack of professional curiosity and follow-ups on Saturday June 25.”
The force broke policy by failing to counter-sign the recall within 24 hours, the jury said, and recall was “significantly delayed”.
“If the risk was correctly assessed as high, it would have justified an emergency recall to prison, initiating a more urgent response” and even at a medium risk “reasonable recall opportunities were overlooked”.
Based on the evidence, recalling McSweeney could have started on 20 June 2022, the jury added.
Coroner Nadia Persaud paid tribute to Ms Aleena, who died two years to the day, and said: “I would like to send my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Zara.”
A video montage of pictures and videos from throughout her life was played during the hearing at East London Coroner’s Court.
McSweeney was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years in December 2022 after admitting the murder and sexual assault of Ms Aleena.
In November 2023, he won an appeal bid to reduce the minimum term of his life sentence.
Ms Persaud had asked jurors to consider whether any failings by the prison and probation services or London’s police contributed to Ms Aleena’s death.
Officers were unable to make contact with McSweeney after he was released on licence on 17 June 2022, but probation services waited five days before initiating his recall to prison.
He missed his probation appointment on the day he was let out, and his mother told staff he had passed out drunk at her house.
It was rescheduled twice but McSweeney did not attend either appointment, and when officers approached his mother again she said she did not know where he was.
Despite the lack of contact his recall was not initiated until 22 June and the recall report was signed on 24 June 2022.
Police were given powers to arrest McSweeney at 4.10pm the same day but, in the early hours of 26 June, he murdered Ms Aleena.
His probation worker said his client should have been graded high risk and, had he been, he would have pushed for him to have been recalled to prison earlier.
Austin Uwaifo said: “At the time, the thinking was that because he came out on the Friday, my thinking was to give him the opportunity to return – possibly he came out and decided to, for whatever reason, decided to go out and get drunk.”
Mr Uwaifo said the probation office was not staffed over the weekend but that he would have requested a faster out-of-hours emergency recall if McSweeney had been graded high risk.
The police officer who actioned the recall said initial inquiries into his whereabouts were closed prematurely and more checks should have been carried out.
Operations Sergeant Ian Batten said he did not foresee that McSweeney was a risk to the public after receiving a recall to prison notice for him on 24 June 2022.
Sgt Batten also said he did not know that initial inquiries into his whereabouts were closed before the end of his shift.
