A DEPRAVED killer who battered a law graduate to death after stalking the streets for a victim has won a bid to slash his sentence.
Jordan McSweeney had been released from a prison sentence just days before he pounced on Zara Aleena, 35, as she walked home.
Zara Aleena was battered to death
Jordan McSweeney was jailed for life with a minimum of 28 years
The 29-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum of 38 years for the brutal murder in June 2022.
He launched a bid to reduce the terms of his minimum sentence, which was today granted at the Court of Appeal.
Top judges found the original term was too high an “uplift” and today replaced it with a minimum of 33 years.
Lady Chief Justice Lady Carr, sitting with Mrs Justice McGowan and Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, said there was “ample evidence” to show McSweeney was a “pugnacious and violent man”.
But she added: “The judge’s findings in relation to planning and premeditation could not be faulted.
“She had correctly identified the seriousness of the murder as ‘particularly high’ – because it had involved sexual conduct – and the statutory starting point for the minimum term as being 30 years.
“That starting point reflected the mental or physical suffering inherent in a murder involving sexual conduct…It was already a very severe penalty.
“However, having correctly found that Ms Aleena must have been rendered unconscious at an early stage in the attack, the judge had lacked a sufficient evidential basis on which to be sure that there had been additional mental or physical suffering such as to justify an increase in the 30-year starting point.
“Mercifully, Ms Aleena was unconscious from early on in the attack. The number of items taken from Ms Aleena and then discarded meant also that it was not safe to conclude that Ms Aleena’s mobile telephone had been taken in order to prevent her from seeking help.
“Further, the suggestion that McSweeney had committed his offences in the expectation that he was likely imminently to be returned to custody for breach of licence conditions relating to earlier offending may have been overstated.”
Zara’s aunt Farah Naz previously told the court how McSweeney’s application had caused “profound distress” to her family.
She said: “It is beyond belief that this individual, who was too spineless to attend his own sentencing, has the audacity to appeal the very sentence he couldn’t be bothered to witness.”
McSweeney had appeared via videlink for the start of proceedings but left before the hearing finished.
The aunt said this behaviour underscored the killer’s “enduring disregard for all”.
McSweeney was on licence at the time of Zara’s murder for criminal damage, racially aggravated harassment and unauthorised possession of a knife in prison.
The predator had 28 previous convictions for 69 offences – including burglary, theft of a motor vehicle, driving offences, criminal property, assaults on police and assaults on members of the public.
He had been released from prison for robbery just nine days before the savage attack.
His licence had been revoked after failing to meet probation officers but he was not recalled to prison.
This meant the predator was free to roam the streets hunting for a victim.
On the night of Zara’s murder, McSweeney was captured on CCTV stalking the streets of East London.
At least four other women managed to escape the killer’s clutches as followed them in the darkness.
One even ran for safety into a home on the same street were Zara was brutally murdered.
After setting his sights on the law graduate, McSweeney dragged her into a driveway where he repeatedly kicked and stamped on her.
Zara was discovered partially clothed and struggling to breath by horrified neighbours who heard her screams.
The prosecutor said she had been attacked with “savagery that is almost impossible to believe”.
A post-mortem gave her cause of death as blunt force trauma injury and neck compression.
Zara was an aspiring lawyer who had just started working at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Her death sparked outrage following the stranger murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard in London as they walked home.
McSweeney, wearing the vest, can be seen hunting for a victim
He was seen following Zara on the night of her murder
Her injuries were so severe there was no chance of survival
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