Zara Aleena was sexually assaulted and murdered in the street a year ago today by a thug who should have been in jail.
The 35-year-old was one of four women – all killed by men – remembered during a service at St Paul’s Cathedral earlier this month.
Relatives shared hugs and tears – including Zara’s aunt Farah Naz, who is campaigning for changes in the law to ensure her death was not in vain.
Farah hugged Susan and Jeremy Everard, the parents of Sarah Everard, 33, who was murdered by a Met cop.
And she shared an emotional moment with retired priest Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, were stabbed in a London park.
Farah, 55, said: “I just reached out my hand, told her who I was and we held hands. I didn’t say anything… I just gave her a look that said, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your daughters’, and she gave me a look that said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss too’.
“None of us needed to talk a lot or say much. We looked at one another and we knew each other’s pain.
“We’re in this room full of people who have all lost someone and each of us has a horror story.
“We all hugged and shed tears for one another, ourselves and our loved ones we have tragically lost.
“Everyone wants to help each other, because we have a shared bond of trauma.”
Days later, Mina called Farah, 55, a psychotherapist, who said: “She gave me a lot of strength and said, ‘I’m here to help you’.”
Brent MP Dawn Butler, who was at the memorial service on June 11, said: “When you have that much pain in one room, it is humbling.
“I sat with Mina and Sarah Everard’s parents came up and we all just started crying. It was a lot of hugging and a lot of emotional and physical connection.”
Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence, Jess Phillips, was also there.
She said: “I have met Farah a number of times. I gave her a cuddle and she told me she wants to ramp up her campaigning. She is an incredibly impressive woman. Had our probation services, our prison services, our government initiatives been better, Zara wouldn’t be dead.”
Zara’s killer Jordan McSweeney, 29, had 69 previous offences and had been recalled to jail two days before the killing. He was jailed for a minimum of 38 years last December.
Tomorrow, a vigil will be held at the place where aspiring lawyer Zara was killed while walking home in Ilford, east London, after a drink with friends. Farah said the idea was to “walk her back home” by completing the journey she never managed to finish herself.
“It will be very painful but at the same time, we will feel really held by the community and a little hopeful for other women,” said Farah, who now lives in Portugal. “I know Zara would be whispering in my ear, ‘Change something, do something, don’t just sit there’.”
Since the murder, Farah, inset, has lobbied politicians to do more to tackle violence against women.
She spoke to former Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and will be seeing Justice Secretary Alex Chalk tomorrow. Official stats show 198 women were murdered in England and Wales in the 12 months to March 2022, compared to 160 the year before.
Farah said: “When you have such a cataclysmic event in your family, it’s like an internal earthquake and you lose a grip on reality. We must try and prevent other families from experiencing such a devastating loss.”
London mayor Sadiq Khan, who will speak at the vigil, said: “There is an epidemic of violence against women and girls which needs to be treated with the utmost urgency, not just by the police but our society as a whole.”
The Home Office said it was reforming the probation system to “keep the public safe”, including recruiting thousands more staff.
