Haunting CCTV shows Zara Aleena’s killer prowl potential targets on night he followed four females

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.

Jordan McSweeney was seen following four other women in the hours before he sexually assaulted, strangled and stamped the law graduate to death on June 26 this year.

The 29-year-old, who was jailed today for a minimum of 38 years after pleading guilty to the attack, had only been released from prison less than two weeks before.

He was tracked down by police to his squalid caravan less than 24 hours after the murder when a bloody fingerprint linked him to the scene.

The ‘spineless’ murderer refused to come up from the cells for his sentencing at the Old Bailey on Wednesday as he did not want to relive the attack, which was captured in its entirety 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

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

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

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

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

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.

CCTV footage showed him greeting women at the door of the pub, putting his arms around them without consent and attempting to kiss them. 

Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow KC said: ‘Despite her making it clear that she was not interested, he kept returning to the bar and kept pestering her.’

After leaving the pub he was seen following a woman, who realised she was being followed and then went into a minimarket to avoid McSweeney.

The court heard that he waited outside for a while before going into the shop, where he hid behind a vegetable display until she left.

McSweeney continued following the woman and chased after her as she ran down a side street to get away from him, but lost her.

‘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

McSweeney’s next target was a woman in the Samiz Chicken Shop in Romford Road – 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 – who he spoke to briefly and put his hand between her legs before she walked away.

McSweeney started following another woman who realised she was in danger and was then fortunately able to enter a property on the street.

Two passing men had spotted the scene unfolding, McSweeney following a woman, and they stopped and stared – potentially saving the woman.

McSweeney then prowled up and down Cranbrook Road for the next 50 minutes. He followed another woman, who had to run inside a house on the street.

He saw Ms Aleena just after 2am, paused as she walked past, and turned to follow her.

Mr Glasgow said: ‘Jordan McSweeney waited for his opportunity to strike and, as soon as he believed that no one was watching, that is exactly what he did.’

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.

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 questions to be answered still and there are lessons to be learned and changes to be made.

‘Zara’s life was senselessly and brutally crushed. Today like every day we live with the horror Zara was forced to face.’

Speaking in court, Ms Naz said: ‘We lost her and more. When a human is murdered, a family is murdered. And when a human is murdered, humanity is murdered.

‘Everything she was, everything she worked so hard for, every dream was destroyed by someone she did not even know, someone else’s sense of entitlement.

‘She was just walking home.’

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) 

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

The senior officer said: ‘He can only be described as a danger to women. His very demeanour, the way he is, the focus that he has and his don’t care less attitude.

‘He is somebody that we really can’t allow out on the streets. Women will always be a danger in my opinion.’

Even though McSweeney had a long history of low-level crime, there were precursors before the night of the murder.

However, a jigsaw of CCTV from earlier in the night showed he had stalked two other women after leaving a bar drunk and possibly high on drugs.

The footage showed him lurching in the road and almost being run over by a car, before he spotted a lone woman.

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.

‘We see him following at least two females before the attack on Zara. And he’s persistent. The worrying thing for me is he’s not put off.

‘These females become aware of his attention and they decide to take evasive action, they come into shops, they run down roads, they run past their own address, rather than go in.

‘But he is not put off. He then moves on to another and he moves on to Zara.’

McSweeney had been released from prison on June 17 and his licence was revoked after he missed probation meetings.

Some 24 hours before the murder, police went to his family address but found he was not there.

Mr Whellams said: ‘As far as I’m aware, the police did as much as they could do with what they knew at the time.’

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

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.

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.