Police failures could lead to more killings like Aleena's - coroner

A coroner has raised concern about how failures by the Metropolitan police and the probation service contributed to the murder of Zara Aleena and could lead to more deaths.

- Matthew Weaver

Jordan McSweeney killed the 35-year-old aspiring lawyer as she walked home from a night out in Ilford in the early hours of 26 June 2022, nine days after he was released from prison on licence.

In a report addressed to the home secretary, the justice secretary, the Met commmissioner, Mark Rowley, and others, the East London area coroner, Nadia Persaud, warned that similar deaths would occur unless services improved.

She expressed serious concerns about the rejection by senior officers in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) of internal criticism over the handling of the case.

In June an inquest into Aleena's death concluded that evidence about McSweeney's possession of weapons and threats to others should have led to his being rearrested after his release. But it found that attempts to rearrest him were impeded by inaccurate data, a lack of professional curiosity and failures to follow up.