The aunt of Zara Aleena has demanded an end to violence against women, saying they are no safer 12 months on from the law graduate’s brutal murder.
Speaking during a vigil near the spot where her niece was killed in east London, Farah Naz described her niece as “both the sweetest, and the strongest person, who wanted to change things… a fighter for justice.”
The 35-year-old aspiring lawyer was attacked, sexually assaulted, and beaten to death by Jordan McSweeney, as she walked home in the early hours of Sunday 26 June.
On Sunday, to mark the anniversary of her death, her family, friends, neighbours, and campaigners met by the street where she was killed to “walk her home” and complete her final journey.
Ms Naz told Sky News: “What we want to work towards is a society which is prepared, and willing to and able, to confront this issue of violence towards women and girls, so we can put a stop the fact that two women are being murdered every week.
“And that’s how we’re approaching this. We’re thinking of Zara in our hearts, but also all of the women who have been murdered.”
It was a quiet, sombre group of around 150 people who gathered to slowly and silently walk the roads she would have known so well, holding placards and T-shirts with pictures of her face on.
People spoke about the need to remember Zara, but also talked frequently about how it could have been “any woman” killed that night – as focus turned again and again to the wider crisis of male violence against women.
Before the walk began, there were also speeches by her family, campaigners, and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who spoke about an “epidemic of violence” against women.
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He said: “Zara is not the first woman to be brutally murdered on our streets. And you know, she’s not the last woman to be brutally murdered.
“On our streets, we have in our country an epidemic of violence against girls, and it’s my sex that is responsible for that violence.”
McSweeney was jailed for life last December with a minimum sentence of 38 years in prison.
He had only just been released from jail at the time, and on the night of her murder he was seen prowling the streets of Ilford for hours, following after women at random, some of whom barely got away before he spotted Zara.
A damning report later found a catalogue of errors in the Probation Service’s handling of McSweeney, which meant he was not treated as a high-risk offender and was “free” to commit this “most heinous crime”.
On Monday, on the anniversary of Zara’s killing, Ms Naz will again meet with the government for talks, and she says ministers are listening to her calls for change.
She said: “I want to talk about the prioritisation of victims. And pushing through the Victim’s Bill.
“We need politicians to keep the ball rolling to keep on going with this and to keep fronting the issue as well as us.”
One of the things Farah wants to see is a law to force perpetrators to be present in court for their sentencing after McSweeney refused to appear in the dock to hear the evidence against him last year.
At the time, the judge in the case said it showed he had “no spine whatsoever.”
