The killer of law graduate Zara Aleena walked out of his own appeal hearing - saying he’d “had enough” – as he bid for a shorter sentence for the brutal killing.
Ms Aleena was walking home alone at night in Ilford when she was attacked by Jordan McSweeney, who carried out a sexual assault before murdering her on a secluded driveway.
McSweeney sparked a public outcry when he failed to turn up for his Old Bailey sentencing hearing last December, as he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 38 years.
He appeared on a videolink from HMP Long Lartin for Friday’s hearing in the Court of Appeal, as his barrister George Carter-Stephenson KC argued McSweeney had shown remorse for the murder and should have received a shorter minimum term.
But midway through his barrister’s legal submissions McSweeney got up and left the videolink room at the prison.
A guard told the court the killer had asked to return to his cell and said he had “had enough” of the court hearing and had “got everything that he wanted”.
Ms Aleena, who was training to be a solicitor, was walking home alone in the early hours of June 26 last year when she was stalked along Cranbrook Road in Ilford by McSweeney.
He was caught on camera grabbing her from behind and dragging her into a driveway, where she was subjected to a horrific violent attack that lasted nearly ten minutes, and ended with him stamping on the victim.
Ms Aleena was found struggling to breathe and later died in hospital.
McSweeney pleaded guilty to murder and sexual assault, and it emerged that he was due to be recalled to prison at the time of the murder.
He had spent a significant period of time that night following other women through the streets of Ilford, apparently looking for an opportunity to attack them.
Mr Carter-Stephenson argued the sentencing judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, had not properly considered McSweeney’s remorse as well as mitigation from various medical conditions. He said McSweeney has ADHD, which causes a lack of empathy and an inability to display emotions, and he argued evidence of the killer’s “sorrow” had been overlooked.
And he told the court McSweeney had grown up in a volatile household where his drug-addicted mother had suffered violence at the hands of his father.
“He was brought up in an atmosphere of violence”, he said. “He was almost conditioned to expect it as the norm.”
MrCarter-Stephenson said it was accepted there was a sexual motive to the crime but argued the murder itself was not premeditated.
“He was obviously stalking women on that night, following them and looking for an opportunity”, he told the court.
“The attack was an opportunistic act rather than anything that was planned in advance though there was clearly a sexual encounter in mind.
“He planned to look for a sexual encounter, with or without consent.”
However prosecutor Oliver Glasgow KC countered: “This was not a moment of impulsive aggression – it was a considered act and the product of hours of pursuing women along the streets.
“There was nothing Zara Aleena did that provoked the violence that was given to her.”
In written submissions, he added: “The submission that the intention to murder Ms Aleena was formed ‘on the spur of the moment’ flies in the face of the applicant’s behaviour preceding the violence.”
Ms Aleena's aunt Farah Naz was among the people who followed today's court hearing online. She has campaigned for defendants in murder cases to be forced to attend court for their sentencing hearings, to hear the impact of their crimes.
Lady Chief Justice Lady Carr, Mrs Justice McGowan and Mrs Justice Ellenbogen have reserved their judgment on the appeal to a later date.
