Zara Aleena's killer Jordan McSweeney wins Court of Appeal bid to reduce ... trends now
Jordan McSweeney, who murdered Zara Aleena in Ilford, east London, in June 2022, has won a Court of Appeal bid to reduce the minimum term of his life sentence - despite walking out of the hearing part-way through.
McSweeney killed the 35-year-old law graduate as she walked home from a night out in Ilford, east London, early on June 26 last year.
The killer refused to attend his sentencing hearing for the murder last December, being handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years in his absence. He had previously admitted sexually assaulting and murdering Ms Aleena.
But a Court of Appeal judge has now reduced the minimum tariff to 33 years instead.
The Lady Chief Justice Lady Carr, sitting with Mrs Justice McGowan and Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, said: '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.'
McSweeney killed Zara Aleena (pictured) as she walked home from a night out in Ilford, east London, early on June 26 last year
Jordan McSweeney had been sentenced to serve a minimum of 38 years in prison, which has now been reduced to 33 years
At the beginning of the hearing, his barrister George Carter-Stephenson KC said: 'At the outset can I make it clear that it is accepted that the attack and murder in this case was particularly savage and brutal and nothing I intend to say in this address is in any way
