Street killing victim Zara Aleena refused to use taxis because she felt it was safer to walk, a friend has revealed.
Louise De’Souza said the aspiring lawyer was scared of getting into them.
Mrs De’Souza, 60, a neighbour who knew Zara, 35, from childhood, said: “Unless someone was sharing or she knew the driver, she wouldn’t get in. I said, ‘Don’t walk late at night’.
She said she was safer because the street lights were on.”
Zara’s killing early last Sunday after a night out has reignited concerns over women’s safety after a series of murders.
They include the killing of sisters Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, in June 2020 a few miles from where Zara was attacked in Ilford, East London.
Last night the sisters’ mum Mina Smallman offered to help Zara’s family cope with their grief.
She said: “Her mum and grandma said they would appreciate speaking to me. We are a group of people you’d never want to be part of.”
Mina has blasted a government StreetSafe app launched after Sarah Everard’s killing last year as a “tickbox exercise” in place of police patrols.
It has led to 18,000 public reports of unsafe areas nationwide.
But Karen Ingala Smith, who runs the Counting Dead Women blog, said: “We will not see changes in men’s behaviour unless we address things that feed their attitudes to women.”
The Home Office said: “StreetSafe is helping us crack down on areas where people feel unsafe.”
Jordan McSweeney, 29, of Dagenham, East London, has been charged with Zara’s murder.
