'How can Zara’s murderer have sex in prison? It is an insult to her memory'

07 January 2024 , 10:15

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Zara Aleena was killed by Jordan McSweeney in 2022

Prison bosses have been accused of a cover-up after the monster who murdered Zara Aleena was found having sex in jail.

Today Zara’s family reveal that even the Cabinet minister in charge of prisons and his top officials knew nothing about the incident three months later. The shocking story was only made public last week but Zara’s aunt Farah Naz was told about it soon after it happened last April.

Farah said she mentioned it at a meeting in June with Alex Chalk – the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice – but he hadn’t a clue. Now she is demanding an inquiry into how killer Jordan McSweeney started a two-month relationship with a prison worker soon after he was sent to one of Britain’s most secure jails.

The pair were finally discovered when guards at Belmarsh in south-east London kicked down a locked door to find them having sex. We can also reveal that the 32-year-old woman was not a prison guard but an employee from an outside agency. Farah told us: “Is Belmarsh a social club or our country’s most high-security prison? There are serious questions to be answered and we need a public investigation. Zara doesn’t even get to breathe but her killer gets to have sex in prison. There has to be a cover-up inside Belmarsh for all those people not to know. Otherwise the system is working worse than we believed.”

Farah Naz, the aunt of murdered aspiring lawyer Zara Aleena (PA)

Incredibly, at a face-to-face meeting on June 26, Mr Chalk and senior prison and probation staff admitted they were unaware of the incident. Farah said: “In May last year I first heard – I was obviously shocked and disgusted but I presumed everyone else in the justice system would know, especially senior people. He had only been sentenced four months before the relationship was discovered and it had been one of the country’s most high-profile court cases. You would imagine it would be at the forefront of their minds.”

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"But when I had a meeting with Alex Chalk on June 26 last year, which was on the first anniversary of Zara’s death, I couldn’t believe what happened. I had an hour-and-a-half talking with him about how probation had changed a year on. With him were six or seven important people including senior probation officials. At the end of the meeting I asked Alex Chalk, ‘What are you doing about what happened in Belmarsh prison?’ I was alluding to the sexual relationship Zara’s killer had been having. He went bright red. He said, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about’. His secretary had to find out and tell him. He then looked at his team and said, ‘We must look at this’.”

Monster Jordan McSweeney (PA)

The MoJ has denied there was a cover-up and blamed the confusion on the recent appointment of the new Justice Secretary. It came despite the murder of law graduate Zara, 35, being one of the most high-profile in recent years – partly because of the blunders that led to it. She was dragged off the street into a driveway while walking home from a night out in Ilford, East London, sexually assaulted and beaten to death. The attack lasted nine minutes and she sustained 46 injuries. CCTV showed McSweeney, 30, a musclebound fairground worker with a record of 69 offences, targeting five other women that night before attacking Zara.

Two days before he had been recalled to jail for missing probation appointments, having just been freed on licence. Police went to his house to arrest him but couldn’t find him – hours before the murder. He refused to attend his trial and the judge who jailed him for 39 years at the Old Bailey in December 2022 called him a “deeply violent man” who had no remorse. Then last October appeal judges reduced the sentence to 34 years – even though he walked out halfway through the hearing, saying he had “heard enough”.

Belmarsh Prison (Getty Images)

Farah says the story highlights a broken justice system yet again: “That whole process was a farce. It made a mockery of the system. Zara’s killer has exposed the weakness in our creaking systems so many times. It is simply not right. It is even worse to think they took five years off his sentence just months after he’d been having sex in prison. Surely you shouldn’t be rewarding someone who has sex in prison with a reduced sentence?”

Farah said of McSweeney: “He is supposed to have 23 hours inside his cell so how can he supposedly meet someone like he did? How does a man who’s murdered a woman so brutally have access to a woman who is not a prison guard? A woman coming in from another organisation?

“What process is taking place to vet people who are going to interact with a Class A prisoner?” The woman has been suspended and arrested on suspicion of misconduct. But Farah – who campaigns for justice for her niece and other female victims of violence – has sympathy. She said: “I’m disappointed she was arrested because here is another woman who is a victim of this man and the system. She could have been killed. It’s the system that’s wrong. She’s been made a scapegoat.”

Zara Aleena as a child

Farah wants another meeting with justice supremo Mr Chalk. She added: “It is essential to view this new information as an urgent call for change.” Farah said: “Despite the alarming pattern of systemic failures that allowed this reprehensible man to murder our Zara and, it appears, to have abused another woman, our interactions with the MoJ and Probation Services have been constructive up to now. They have acknowledged the mistakes openly, fostering a dialogue to extend condolences, lend an ear, and concentrate on reforming the flawed systems. It is essential to view this new information as a clear wake-up call and an urgent call for change.”

Zara, who was brought up in a large family which came to Britain from Pakistan in the 1960s, was an aspiring lawyer and “quite a powerful force in our family, not afraid to speak up about things”, her aunt recalled. “She was a proponent of the underdog and for doing things right for people, communities. Sadly, since her death Zara is being repeatedly failed by the police, probation, court and prison services, who have broken processes.”

Zara was an aspiring lawyer

The Met Police said: “On 6 April 2023, the Met received an allegation of inappropriate conduct at HMP Belmarsh. The same day, a 32-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. She was bailed pending further enquiries until a date in late July. She was later released under investigation. Enquiries are ongoing.” The prison service did not comment.

Ben Griffiths