# 73: Murdered Minutes From Her Front Door - Zara Aleena’s Story

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 18 Jun 2024, 55 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6700925826.mp3

Today's case is on Zara Aleena, who was tragically murdered while walking home in Ilford, London, by a man who had just been released from prison. Today, Zara’s name rallies the call to end violence against women in the UK. Walk It Out Reclaim These Streets Refuge Trigger Warning: sexual assault, rape, stalking, domestic violence, violence against women Other Resources: https://linktr.ee/usualdisclaimer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

## Transcript

[0:00] Every woman should be able to walk alone safely without having
[0:05] to hold her keys between her fingers or be constantly looking
[0:08] over her shoulder. But almost every woman can
[0:11] relate to the fear, the chill that runs down your spine when
[0:15] someone is walking just a little too close behind you.
[0:19] On a warm summer night in Ilford, London, Zara Alina was
[0:23] walking home late at night after catching up with a friend.
[0:26] Zara believed that women should be able to walk home alone and
[0:30] make it back just fine, the same way as any man would.
[0:33] But that night, her right was stolen from her in the most
[0:37] horrifying, violating and brutal way.
[0:41] She took her usual route home, and she felt safe, but Zara was
[0:46] unaware of the danger lurking right behind her.
[0:49] She hadn't realized that a man had been following her, stalking
[0:53] her as if she was prey. He'd been roaming the streets of
[0:57] London that night, looking specifically for a woman, any
[1:01] woman that he could attack. In the early hours of that
[1:04] summer morning in 2022, he violently murdered Zara Alina,
[1:09] and she was just minutes away from making it home safe.
[1:13] But what makes this case so frustrating is that the police
[1:16] knew how dangerous Zara's killer was.
[1:20] He was fresh out of prison and police was supposed to be
[1:23] keeping a close eye on him. And what's even worse, he should
[1:26] have been in prison at the time that he committed this awful
[1:30] crime. But police seem to be in no rush
[1:33] to capture him and get him behind bars, leaving him free to
[1:37] stalk and murder Zara as she was just living her life.
[1:41] This is the story of Zara Alina, a fierce, kind, independent
[1:47] woman who loved walking and empowered other women to walk
[1:51] the streets confidently too. So today we're going to walk
[1:54] with Zara Alina on her very last walk home.
[2:02] This series is intended for educational purposes, to
[2:05] memorialize victims, and to amplify important conversations.
[2:08] All opinions stated are mine alone.
[2:11] Just to let you know, this episode will cover a lot of
[2:14] sensitive topics including discussion of sexual assault,
[2:18] rape, stalking, domestic violence, violence against
[2:21] women, and murder. So viewer discretion is always
[2:25] advised. With all that being said, let's
[2:27] delve into today's case, one that echoes the fear of so many
[2:32] women. Zara Alina believed that every
[2:35] woman should have the right to walk freely and without fear.
[2:40] And on June 26th, 2022, she did just that.
[2:44] But her final walk home ended in horrible tragedy.
[2:48] Just minutes away from her own front door, Zara was brutally
[2:52] assaulted and murdered. Her case has sparked a movement
[2:56] for change across the UK, but Zara's fight for women's rights
[3:00] and justice had started long before that fateful night.
[3:05] Zara Natasha Alina was born on December 9th, 1986.
[3:09] She grew up in a close knit South Asian family.
[3:12] Her grandparents had migrated from Pakistan to the UK in 1968
[3:17] and they arrived in London and built a warm and loving home for
[3:21] their five children and Zara was their first grandchild.
[3:25] Her mother was a single mother. She had Zara when she was only
[3:28] 22 years old, which couldn't have been easy.
[3:31] But despite all of the extra challenges that will of course
[3:34] come with being a single parent, Zara's mum had a lot of help
[3:38] from the rest of the family, from her siblings and from her
[3:41] parents. Zara's grandparents.
[3:43] Everyone in the family absolutely doted on Zara.
[3:47] Isn't that always the case with the first grandchild?
[3:50] Zara didn't actually have any siblings, but she never felt
[3:53] lonely because she did have such a close knit family.
[3:56] All of her aunties and uncles and cousins were always around
[3:59] her. In fact, we have a quote from
[4:01] her aunt Farrah now, who said that she was the family darling.
[4:05] She was the rock of our family. At the big age of five years
[4:09] old, Zara Alina announced to her family that she was going to be
[4:13] a lawyer when she grew up. And I love that because
[4:15] honestly, how many of us actually became what we said we
[4:18] were going to be when we were five years old?
[4:20] If if that would have worked for me, I would be a singer.
[4:23] I would be Sabrina Carpenter right now.
[4:25] But Zara actually became a lawyer like she said she would
[4:28] at five years old. That's crazy.
[4:30] I don't know of that really happening, but her path to
[4:33] lawyer dumb wasn't exactly easy. Her studies kept having to be
[4:38] put on hold for different reasons, they had financial
[4:41] issues and also at a point Zara became a carer for both her
[4:45] mother and her grandmother. And if you don't know, being a
[4:49] carer basically means helping and supporting someone who can't
[4:53] do everything on their own, either because of illness or a
[4:56] disability or old age. And she was that for two people,
[5:01] which is surely exhausted. But of course Zara loved them so
[5:05] much it was a no brainer. Of course she was going to care
[5:07] for the women that she loved. She had a bedroom in both of
[5:10] their houses so that if she needed her, she could stay over
[5:14] at either one if one of them needed extra care one time.
[5:17] And she would walk back and forth between their houses.
[5:19] It was like a 30 minute walk either way.
[5:21] And she would do that pretty much every single day to go and
[5:24] care for both of them. She was making sure that the two
[5:27] of them had all the food that they needed.
[5:29] They were taking their medications, they were getting
[5:31] dressed and washed and, you know, functioning as a human
[5:35] being. But on top of all of that, she
[5:36] was also just there to have conversations with them and to
[5:39] help them feel less lonely. Because even just having someone
[5:43] there to talk and laugh with can make a huge difference to
[5:47] someone's overall well-being and in turn, their recovery.
[5:51] Sometimes physical recovery can start from mental recovery and
[5:56] support. And of course Zara did find this
[5:59] very difficult, balancing caring for these women and her studies
[6:03] and everything else about being a normal young woman.
[6:06] You know your social life, maybe date in life, but Zara handled
[6:10] everything with such optimism, positivity and strength.
[6:14] Her family always said that Zara was stoic and held it all
[6:17] together and never complained. She really was the rock of their
[6:21] family. She was the one that everyone
[6:23] could depend on and she was always willing to drop what she
[6:26] was doing in order to help someone else when they needed
[6:29] it. But she also never let go of her
[6:31] dream of becoming a lawyer. Slowly but surely that dream was
[6:35] coming true when she was revising for her solicitors
[6:38] exams, which is like the UK version of the bar exams.
[6:42] In America, to become a lawyer, you just basically got to learn
[6:44] the law. You know, when she was studying
[6:46] for those exams, she would go and visit her aunt who only
[6:49] lived like a few minutes walk away, and she would basically
[6:53] force her aunt to help her study for these exams.
[6:56] They would do these like funny little role play scenarios where
[7:00] her aunt would have to pretend to be a client and Zara would be
[7:04] the lawyer that's that's helping the case.
[7:06] But apparently they never really got very far with these
[7:09] role-playing sessions because they would always end up
[7:11] bursting into laughter with each other.
[7:14] But regardless, Zara passed her solicitors exams with
[7:17] distinction. Then in May 2022, at 35 years
[7:21] old, Zara landed her first job, well, first lawyer job, I'm
[7:26] assuming, at the Royal Courts of Justice.
[7:29] And on her very first day there, she took a selfie and sent it to
[7:32] her friends and family, saying that she couldn't believe that
[7:34] she was actually there finally. And Zara was so beautiful.
[7:39] She had this curly long jet black hair, these big sparkling
[7:44] eyes. Just imagine how she must have
[7:46] fell on that first day walking into the Royal Courts of
[7:49] Justice, walking down those lengthy corridors with all those
[7:52] like historical painting portraits on the walls.
[7:56] After all those years of hard work and sacrifices, she had
[8:00] finally made it. She was officially a lawyer and
[8:03] she felt like this was a whole new chapter in her life.
[8:06] But she wanted to make sure that she was using these skills to
[8:10] keep standing up for people those rights.
[8:13] Zara had a fierce sense of justice and fairness, and she
[8:17] was very dedicated to giving and caring for other people.
[8:21] And it was while she was working at the Royal Courts that she
[8:24] also volunteered her spare time to work as a caseworker to help
[8:29] to resettle refugees in the UK. As a caseworker, she would spend
[8:33] her days getting to know these people and they're really brave
[8:36] stories. And she would make sure that
[8:38] they had all the support they needed in terms of housing,
[8:41] healthcare, and education. And on top of all of that,
[8:44] again, she was there to just provide emotional support and to
[8:47] talk to these people and let them know that they're not on
[8:50] their own in this. She would help ease their
[8:53] transition and help them overcome the trauma that they'd
[8:56] faced. I just think it's incredible
[8:58] that she was volunteering what little free time she had to help
[9:03] other people start a new life and to feel less alone while
[9:07] doing it. Caring for others just came so
[9:09] naturally to Zara. And it wasn't just people
[9:13] either, it was animals. She was an animal lover,
[9:15] primarily a cat lover and she was a cat mom.
[9:18] She would always spend her own hard earned money to take like
[9:22] stray cats that she would find on the street to the vet and
[9:24] make sure they were de fleed and looked after.
[9:27] She was always asking around her neighbors if anyone wanted a cat
[9:30] that she'd found on the street and taken to the vet and she
[9:33] would take them in herself. She was just an incredible
[9:36] woman. Her aunt Farrah said.
[9:38] If I had to use just one word to describe Zara, it would be in
[9:42] the pendant. Her independence was what Zara
[9:44] valued more than anything really.
[9:47] But on June 26th, 2022, she was violently robbed of it and of
[9:52] her right to walk alone. That night, a predator had been
[9:57] stalking the streets of London, searching for any woman that he
[10:01] could attack, and unfortunately, he crossed paths with Zara
[10:05] Alina. It was a warm sunny Saturday
[10:08] evening in Ilford, London and London in summer is all always
[10:12] buzzing and busy, it's always packed with people and this day
[10:16] was no different. Everyone had been out enjoying
[10:18] the sun, enjoying the weekend and so was Zara.
[10:22] At about 8:30 PM on June 25th she decided to go and meet up
[10:26] with a friend at the Great Spoon of Ilford, which is a cosy pub
[10:30] in East London. There they had dinner and some
[10:32] drinks and then they headed to another bar called Champs Bar on
[10:36] Chapel Rd. and there they continued to talk and laugh and
[10:40] dance. At around 2:00 AM PM on June
[10:43] 26th, the girls decided to call it a night and Zara waited as
[10:47] her friend hailed a cab. But Zara herself decided that
[10:50] she was just going to walk home. She told her friend that she
[10:53] usually didn't like getting cabs when she was on her own because
[10:56] she didn't like the idea of getting into a car with a
[10:58] stranger. And that stranger could do
[11:00] anything. You know, she actually felt
[11:02] safer walking the streets on her own.
[11:06] And that is what is so devastating about this case.
[11:08] Zara loved walking anyways. She walked everywhere.
[11:12] In fact, people that loved her say that she always used to
[11:15] carry a pair of trainers in her bag for nights out like this
[11:18] where she was wearing like party shoes and then was going to walk
[11:21] home. She would swap them out to make
[11:23] that walk a lot comfier. And don't we all have that one
[11:25] friend where they're like looking up a journey on their
[11:28] phone and they're like, it's only 55 minutes to walk.
[11:30] I'm like, girl, we're getting an Uber.
[11:32] But Zara was pretty confident with this walk home that night.
[11:35] It was still really warm. It was a really nice atmosphere.
[11:39] But of course, it was really dark.
[11:40] Although she knew, knew her route home, she felt confident
[11:43] with it and she knew it was very well lit.
[11:46] There were a lot of St. lamps where she was walking and it was
[11:48] only going to be about a 30 minute walk, which at 2 AMI
[11:52] would say it was quite a long walk.
[11:53] But for a, for a real Walker like Zara, that that didn't put
[11:57] her off. And she knew how dangerous it
[11:59] was to walk alone at night as a woman.
[12:02] I mean, we all do. But she was also very fierce
[12:05] when it came to equality and exercising her rights.
[12:09] Men can walk home in the middle of the night without a problem,
[12:12] and Zara knew that she had that same right to feel free and
[12:16] safe. So she walked back home and that
[12:19] night felt just like any other. Everything was pretty normal.
[12:23] She headed down a street called Cranbrook Rd. and this was only
[12:26] about 10 minutes away from her house.
[12:28] And it was at this point that a man spotted Zara.
[12:32] A man that had been wandering the streets all freaking night.
[12:36] He had never seen Zara before, but in that moment when she
[12:39] caught his eye, he decided to follow her for a while.
[12:42] He was walking a bit further behind her, there was a decent
[12:46] amount of distance and he was watching her, but slowly he was
[12:49] getting faster and faster, catching up to her.
[12:52] Until now he was only a few steps behind her and there was
[12:56] no one else on the street. But it doesn't seem like Zara
[13:00] had actually noticed him or heard him.
[13:03] He was stalking her like she was his prey.
[13:06] It was 2:30 AM and she was just a few minutes away from her
[13:10] front door when she feels someone closing in behind her.
[13:13] By the time she realized it was too late for her to do anything,
[13:17] this man grabbed her by the back of her neck and dragged her into
[13:21] a nearby driveway. He pulled her right to the
[13:24] ground and into the darkness, out of the sight of anyone that
[13:27] might be walking by now. I can't even begin to describe
[13:31] the extreme and horrific level of violence that Zara suffered
[13:36] at the hands of this man. And it really was at the hands
[13:39] of this man. He attacked her with his bare
[13:41] hands. There were no weapons involved
[13:43] as far as we're aware. But Oh my God, he did major
[13:47] damage. He beat her within an inch of
[13:50] her life, undressed her and sexually assaulted her, which
[13:54] caused a lot of blood loss. But Zara fought back.
[13:58] She struggled and really tried to fight this man off, but he
[14:02] was much stronger than her. Every hit that he dealt, every
[14:06] time he pushed her to the ground, he always had the power
[14:09] over her. He was strangling her.
[14:12] He was stamping on her head, on her neck, on her body and at
[14:16] some point Zara lost consciousness.
[14:18] In total, the attack lasted A horrific 9 minutes.
[14:24] About 3 minutes into the attack, Zara received a text from the
[14:28] friend that she was out with that night.
[14:30] Of course, Zara never saw it, but this text said are you home
[14:34] Hon? Her friend assumed that she
[14:37] would have made it home safe that night.
[14:39] Before this man left Zara for dead on that driveway, he
[14:44] rummaged through her body and her belongings, stealing a few
[14:47] of them, and then just walked away like nothing had happened.
[14:52] And as he walked down that street, he was discarding Zara's
[14:56] belongings left, right and centre.
[14:58] And I really can't make sense of this.
[15:01] He threw her pants and her keys just like, onto the street
[15:05] somewhere. He threw her wallet and her
[15:07] leggings up in a tree and threw her phone in the driveway of a
[15:12] nearby house. And I really wonder what his
[15:14] intentions were with that. Because obviously all of that
[15:17] stuff is going to be found so quick.
[15:19] Unless that's what he wanted. I, I think that must be what he
[15:22] wanted. Was he doing this so that people
[15:25] couldn't ignore the evidence? They couldn't ignore what he had
[15:29] done? Within moments of him leaving
[15:31] the crime scene, Zara was actually found by two couples
[15:35] that were walking down the street.
[15:36] They found her unconscious, but she was breathing, breathing
[15:40] very heavily, very strained. Her leg was bent at a very odd
[15:44] angle and there was blood everywhere, all over her face.
[15:49] At 2:39 AM they called 999 and they tried to give her first aid
[15:54] while the ambulance arrived. The paramedics got there so
[15:57] fast, literally within like 5 minutes.
[16:00] They rushed Zara to the Royal London Hospital.
[16:02] There they found that she had a total of 46 separate injuries,
[16:07] including cuts on her head, bruises on her face, a broken
[16:11] nose, and a severe traumatic brain injury.
[16:15] But by the time she had reached the hospital, Zara had lost so
[16:19] much blood that it was too late to save her.
[16:22] At 9:58 AM. Zara Alina died in hospital on
[16:27] June 26th, 2022. She had suffered an unimaginable
[16:33] amount of violence at the hands of this violent, sick, evil
[16:38] stranger on the streets that she called home, on the streets that
[16:42] she actually felt safe on. At around 11:00 AM and that day,
[16:46] police knock on the door of Zara's grandmother and she could
[16:50] immediately tell just by the look on their faces that
[16:53] something horrible had happened. They asked her grandmother if
[16:57] she could identify Zara using a still image that they'd captured
[17:01] from the pub CCTV footage. They hand over this picture and
[17:04] it's of Zara laughing and joking with her friend, and her grandma
[17:08] proudly confirmed that yeah, that was her Zara.
[17:12] And then police had to break the awful news to her, not only that
[17:17] Zara had passed away, but they also had to tell her how they
[17:21] had found her grandchild beaten, violated and abandoned on the
[17:26] side of the road. It just broke everyone's heart
[17:29] to know that she had died alone in hospital that morning.
[17:34] The family rock, the family darling, the person that was
[17:37] always there looking after everyone was gone forever.
[17:43] The pain that her family must have felt is just unimaginable
[17:47] and it affected them in such major ways.
[17:50] None of them could sleep or eat, none of them could talk about
[17:54] the murder, but of course they couldn't think about anything
[17:57] else, her aunt Farrah said. It's as if a thief came into our
[18:01] family home and took the heart of it.
[18:04] Although her family were comforted to know at this point
[18:07] that the police had secured the crime scene and begun looking
[18:10] for the evidence that would capture the man responsible for
[18:14] this. Cranbrook Rd. was usually very
[18:16] busy. It's lined with shops and
[18:18] supermarkets and small businesses.
[18:20] There's usually cars and buses constantly running.
[18:23] But that morning it was eerily quiet.
[18:26] It was a close knit neighborhood in that area of London and so it
[18:30] really didn't take long for Zara's story to spread.
[18:33] And everyone was in complete and utter shock because just like
[18:37] Zara, they had believed that their streets were sick.
[18:41] And now every time they looked out of their windows and saw
[18:44] that blue crime scene tip flickering in the wind, it was a
[18:48] reminder of how quickly and violently everyone's lives had
[18:53] changed. So police went door to door
[18:55] talking to pretty much everyone in the area on Cranbrook Rd.
[18:59] They were doing a full forensic examination of the crime scene
[19:02] and the area around it, and that's when they found
[19:05] fingerprints and blood at the crime scene that of course,
[19:09] didn't belong to Zara. It was her killers.
[19:12] This is, of course, great evidence to have in a case like
[19:15] this because as soon as you get a suspect, you can test the DNA
[19:19] against the crime scene DNA, and then you've got a yes or a no
[19:21] answer as to whether that's the killer.
[19:23] The police ran these fingerprints through the
[19:25] criminal database of previous violent criminals.
[19:29] And would you believe it, a match popped up just like that.
[19:32] It was so quick. This guy leaving his bloody
[19:36] fingerprints all over the crime scene had basically meant that
[19:39] he had handed himself over to the police and now they had a
[19:42] name. He was Jordan McSweeney, 29
[19:46] years old, and he had actually been in and out of prison since
[19:50] he was 15, so he was already very well known to the police.
[20:02] Jordan McSweeney had been convicted 28 times for 69
[20:09] different crimes over the course of 17 years, which is insane.
[20:14] This guy is a career criminal from a very early age.
[20:17] His lengthy criminal history included things like burglary,
[20:20] car theft, criminal damage, assaulting police officers, and
[20:24] racially aggravated assaults. When he was 17, he was convicted
[20:28] for assaulting a young woman and leaving her with a swollen eye.
[20:32] And then in 2021, the year before Zara's murder, Jordan
[20:36] received a three-year long restraining order from another
[20:40] woman that he had also assaulted.
[20:43] Jordan's ex-girlfriend says that she feels lucky she still has
[20:47] her life after being abused by him so many times when they were
[20:51] together. She described how he beat her up
[20:54] dozens of times, leaving her bruised and scarred.
[20:58] She said his tactic would be to try to stamp to kick and it
[21:02] seems he had done the exact same thing to Zara Alina.
[21:06] Jordan McSweeney was a serious danger to women and the police
[21:10] knew that. So why was he able to still walk
[21:14] the streets and murder an innocent woman at will?
[21:17] He had actually just been released from prison when he
[21:20] committed this murder just nine days before.
[21:23] The particular crime that he had been in jail for was another
[21:26] burglary, another assault of another woman.
[21:29] But like I said, 9 days before murdering Zara Alina, Jordan
[21:34] McSweeney was released from prison.
[21:35] Now, this is probably the most frustrating part about this
[21:40] whole entire case, but Jordan was actually supposed to be in
[21:45] prison the night that he killed Zara.
[21:47] The police were supposed to have found him and taken him back to
[21:51] prison because he had missed meetings with his probation
[21:55] officers, and that's not allowed.
[21:57] In fact, let me take a quick moment to explain this, because
[22:00] probation in the UK is slightly different to the US.
[22:03] It's more like parole. Basically, probation means that
[22:06] you can leave prison before your sentence is actually fully up,
[22:10] but you're still under police supervision.
[22:13] It's known as being unlicensed. You have to follow certain rules
[22:16] like checking in with a probation officer and possibly
[22:19] attending like rehab programs and things like that.
[22:22] And if you break these rules of your probation, you could be
[22:26] sent back to prison. Basically, the aim with a
[22:28] probation program like this is to help get criminals back on
[22:32] their feet after spending time in prison.
[22:34] They can prepare for life on the outside whilst police are still
[22:38] keeping the community safe. Or at least that's supposed to
[22:42] be how it Of course, Jordan McSweeney broke the rules of his
[22:45] probation by not attending any of the scheduled meetings with
[22:49] his probation officer. And so on June 24th, 2 days
[22:53] before the murder, Jordan was supposed to be recalled to
[22:56] prison. But the police failed to track
[22:59] him down. They actually only checked one
[23:01] address that he might be at and he wasn't there.
[23:05] So that was it. I guess they never bothered to
[23:08] follow up or try something else or or try again later.
[23:12] I don't know. They just, they literally gave
[23:13] up after checking once and two days later he had murdered and
[23:18] sexually assaulted a woman on the street.
[23:21] And it just infuriates me that the police were responsible for
[23:25] this dangerous guy. They were very aware of how
[23:28] dangerous he was to women, primarily, and they didn't make
[23:32] sure that he was off the streets and a woman died because of it.
[23:36] But bear with me because we're going to talk a lot more about
[23:38] the police failings a little bit later on.
[23:41] For now, let's continue with Jordan McSweeney.
[23:44] Of course, now police had a lot more urgency when it came to
[23:47] tracking him down, but they still didn't really know where
[23:50] to check. This is something we'll get into
[23:52] a bit later. But because Jordan McSweeney was
[23:54] always in and out of prison, I believe he was just homeless.
[23:57] He didn't really have a House of his own.
[23:59] He would just couch surf or, I don't know, make it work.
[24:03] I don't know. So they didn't have a proper
[24:05] address press to go to and check, they actually didn't know
[24:08] where to start. But it turns out that the whole
[24:12] attack had been caught on camera.
[24:15] London has more CCTV cameras than any other city in the world
[24:19] outside of Asia. They have a lot of cameras, but
[24:22] this meant that it was going to be a huge advantage for police.
[24:26] Although it is incredibly disturbing to know that Zara's
[24:29] attack was captured on film, this meant that they would be
[24:32] able to track her attackers movements before and after
[24:37] leaving her and maybe that could lead them to where he was.
[24:40] So off they went, gathering all this different kind of CCTV
[24:44] footage from the route that Zara had taken that night.
[24:47] There were hours and hours to go over and what they found on
[24:51] these tapes was chilling. On June 25th, the night of the
[24:55] murder, this man had been stalking the streets of London
[24:59] looking for women to prey on for hours, and he really didn't seem
[25:03] to care what they look like, wasn't going for any specific
[25:06] features, he was just looking for any woman that he could
[25:11] overpower an attack. Around 8:00 PM, Jordan went to
[25:15] the Great Spoon pub in Ilford, and if you remember, that was
[25:19] where Zara met her friend at 8:30, thirty minutes later.
[25:24] But this seems like it was only a coincidence.
[25:26] From the footage and things like that, it doesn't seem like
[25:28] Jordan ever bothered with Zara or her friend while they were
[25:31] there. In fact, CCTV footage from The
[25:34] Great Spoon showed Jordan bothering a different woman
[25:37] outside. He was trying to put his arms
[25:39] around her and at one point he was trying to grab her butt.
[25:42] And then at one point he goes in for a kiss and she pushes him
[25:46] off and just goes back inside the pub.
[25:48] After a while, Jordan followed her back inside.
[25:51] Although I don't know if he could find her.
[25:52] He was. He ended up bothering other
[25:54] women inside there anywhere. And at around 11:00 PM he was
[25:57] finally kicked out after making unwanted advances at a female
[26:02] staff member. So he really was just trying
[26:05] with any and every woman that he could.
[26:09] After he was kicked out of that pub, Jordan was seen on CCTV
[26:12] just wandering aimlessly around Ilford.
[26:15] He was clearly very, very drunk. He's like stumbling all over the
[26:18] place and even stumbles into the road and at one point almost
[26:22] right in front of the bus. And then he spots a woman, not
[26:25] Zara, a different woman, just walking down the street and he
[26:29] starts to follow her. It seems that she notices him
[26:32] following pretty quickly. She starts walking quicker,
[26:35] hoping to lose him, but he notices that she's speed up and
[26:39] so he starts jogging to keep up with her.
[26:41] She managed to slip into a nearby supermarket to get away
[26:44] from him, but he followed her in.
[26:47] He'd lost sight of her by the time he'd actually gotten inside
[26:50] the supermarket, so he just starts walking up and down the
[26:53] aisles searching for her. He can't find her and so in the
[26:57] end he just goes and sits outside the supermarket front
[27:00] door and waits for her, thinking, well, she's going to
[27:03] have to come out at some point. And eventually she does.
[27:07] She comes out of that door and sees him still there and she
[27:11] breaks into this desperate run to get away from him.
[27:14] She keeps running until she's sure that she lost him and
[27:17] thankfully she managed to escape with her life.
[27:21] Later, Jordan McSweeney goes into a chicken shop.
[27:24] He orders some food, sits down at a table and starts to watch
[27:28] this woman who is also sitting in there eating her dinner.
[27:31] As he is staring at this woman, he puts his hand down his
[27:36] trousers and seems to start masturbating while making direct
[27:40] eye contact with her and she was disgusted.
[27:44] She immediately left the restaurant and guess what?
[27:47] He gets up to follow her out, but as he gets outside, he spots
[27:52] a new woman standing on the pavement and she distracts his
[27:56] attentions. And the original woman that he
[27:58] was stalking managed to run away.
[28:00] But now he's already got his sights on a new victim.
[28:03] There's a new one every two minutes.
[28:06] It's absolutely horrifying to know that if it wasn't Zara, it
[28:11] probably would have been another woman that night because Jordan
[28:14] McSweeney was stopping at nothing.
[28:16] So he gets outside this chicken shop, spots this new woman and
[28:19] goes over to her, grabs her, puts his arm around her and then
[28:23] puts his dirty, disgusting hand between her legs.
[28:26] Honestly watching the CCTV videos of that night is so
[28:31] chilling. He really looks like he's
[28:33] stalking prey and the videos where he's like running behind
[28:36] them, Oh my God. He is just a predator in every
[28:40] sense of the word. I cannot believe that he was out
[28:43] on the streets that night. Just before 2:00 AM.
[28:46] He is following yet another woman down Cranbrook Rd.
[28:50] So this is half an hour before he sees Zara and he's in the
[28:54] same area as he's following this woman.
[28:57] There were two men across the street that seemed to notice
[29:00] what he was doing. They were watching him, but they
[29:02] didn't step in. They didn't help this woman.
[29:04] They just watched from afar as he continued closing in on her.
[29:08] This woman notices Jordan and she kind of moves out of the way
[29:11] of him because, like I said, he looks very belligerently drunk.
[29:15] He was stumbling and falling into walls.
[29:17] So she just kind of moved out of the way of him and he overtook
[29:21] her, walked in front of her. He pretended to enter a house a
[29:25] bit further down the street, but of course he didn't live there.
[29:28] He was just hiding, laying in wait, waiting for her to catch
[29:33] up to him. And I presume his plan was to
[29:36] what, Jump out and grab her? But luckily the woman lived
[29:40] very, very close by, closer than Jordan had just ran off to and
[29:44] hid. So she was able to get into her
[29:46] house safely, and he was just left hiding there in the
[29:49] darkness like a fucking loser. Of course he was not satisfied.
[29:53] He still hasn't found a woman to attack.
[29:56] He appears back on Cranbrook Rd. and that was when he spots Zara
[30:01] Alina and the footage is truly frightening.
[30:05] It shows Zara walking confidently down this quiet St.
[30:09] and it was pretty much deserted because it was so late at night,
[30:12] but it was very well lit by the street lamps.
[30:15] As I said, he was so zoned in on Zara it was like he didn't see
[30:19] anything else on the street and honestly he didn't care.
[30:23] Of course we know what happens from that point.
[30:25] He closes in on Zara and AT attacks her and then police are
[30:29] able to see where he goes after the attack at around 2:47 AM.
[30:35] So it's on. It's not even been a full 10
[30:37] minutes since he finished the attack.
[30:39] He arrives at his friend's caravan where I think he was
[30:42] staying since he'd been released from prison, and there was
[30:45] actually a lot of CCTV surrounding this caravan because
[30:48] it wasn't parked just anywhere. It was at a fun fair.
[30:52] There was a fun fair going on at a park just off Cranbrook Rd.
[30:55] and this caravan was right in the the middle of all the
[30:57] cameras. So police keep watching all of
[30:59] this footage until they see Jordan re emerge from the
[31:02] caravan at 3:00 PM the following day.
[31:05] He's seen strolling around the fairground, which is crowded
[31:09] with families. It's a lovely summer's day and
[31:12] none of them know what this man had done just a few hours
[31:16] before. He can be seen on this footage
[31:18] carrying a bag in his hand, and of course, no one knew that
[31:22] inside that bag were clothes covered in blood, the outfit
[31:26] that he had been wearing when he raped and murdered Zara Alina.
[31:31] He was apparently on his way to hide this bag under the
[31:35] panelling of a different caravan.
[31:37] I don't know if he just didn't think through like where he was
[31:41] putting all of these things. You know, like when he threw her
[31:43] leggings in a tree and putting these things underneath another
[31:46] caravan. If it's a fairground caravan,
[31:49] don't they move regularly? Is it not like a travelling
[31:52] thing? So as soon as they put their
[31:54] caravan up to travel to the next place, the murder evidence is
[31:58] going to be discovered. I don't know if this guy just
[32:01] wasn't thinking. In fact, that's my guess.
[32:03] I think this guy just didn't have a brain up there.
[32:05] But anyway, police went straight down to that funfair, straight
[32:09] to Jordan's caravan, his friend's caravan, and they woke
[32:13] him up. He was asleep in the middle of
[32:14] the day. Of course, he woke up all dazed
[32:17] and confused, and they arrested him.
[32:20] He was taken to the police station for questioning about
[32:22] the murder, and he couldn't have been less interested if he
[32:27] tried. He was yawning the whole entire
[32:29] time, and apparently at one point he told police they were
[32:32] boring him. Surely at this point in time,
[32:35] Jordan must have realized that he is going back to jail, and
[32:38] for a very fucking long time. This time the evidence against
[32:41] him was just overwhelming. Let's run through it all quick,
[32:44] shall we? There was CCTV footage of the
[32:47] attack itself, and not only that, CCTV footage of him
[32:51] stalking multiple women that whole night.
[32:54] There was the bag of bloody clothes that he had gone and
[32:57] hidden apparently under another caravan.
[32:59] And of course there were his literal fingerprints and blood
[33:03] that were found at the crime scene that we used to identify
[33:07] him in the 1st place. And that is irrefutable.
[33:10] This came. This is so harrowing, but also
[33:13] so incredibly frustrating. The what ifs are tormenting.
[33:19] What if someone in one of the houses nearby heard Zara's
[33:23] desperate screams and ran out to scare Jordan off?
[33:26] What if one of the many people that had seen Jordan stalking
[33:30] and assaulting and harassing different women that night?
[33:33] What if one of them had called the police?
[33:34] After all, the police were already looking for Jordan
[33:38] McSweeney. They wanted to take him back to
[33:40] prison. One singular phone call could
[33:43] have stopped him right in his tracks before he was able to
[33:46] snuff out the life of poor Zara. What if those passers by that
[33:51] did eventually find Zara's body? What if they had walked onto
[33:55] that street just two minutes earlier?
[33:57] Would they have caught Jordan? Would Zara have survived?
[34:01] Of course. Those people did everything they
[34:03] possibly could to save her. There was nothing that they
[34:05] could have done better in that situation, but it is just such a
[34:10] tormenting what if. What if they were just 5 minutes
[34:14] earlier? And the worst one of all is what
[34:16] if police had just done their job properly in the 1st place
[34:21] and taken Jordan McSweeney to prison before the murder even
[34:25] had chance to take place. If police had tried harder to
[34:29] locate Jordan McSweeney when they were told to, then Zara
[34:33] would still be here today. The whole probation system in
[34:37] the UK is broken and even the police themselves have been
[34:40] calling for changes to the system.
[34:42] It's like prison has become this revolving door where prisoners
[34:45] go in and then come out and just go straight back in again.
[34:48] The system doesn't do a good job of keeping track of these people
[34:52] or helping to change them, rehabilitate them, help them
[34:55] turn their lives around so when they do leave prison for one
[34:58] crime, circumstances haven't changed.
[35:00] Police say that this is because of a mixture of different issues
[35:03] that they are facing. First, there are too many cases
[35:07] and too little police. They just do not have the
[35:10] resources and the people power. They say that it's because of
[35:13] the lack of super experienced police officers because less
[35:17] people want to be police these days so less people are in
[35:20] training. I wonder why?
[35:22] They also blame bad oversight and a lack of focus and control
[35:26] from senior management, which speaks volumes.
[35:29] Why? Why would you hire people that
[35:31] lack focus and control to be in senior positions?
[35:35] Police have called for more funding for the system and
[35:38] improved training for probation officers and better ways to keep
[35:42] track of prisoners when they leave prison.
[35:45] But in 2021, a report on the probation system found that
[35:48] checks were nowhere near effective enough.
[35:51] And that is the official wording.
[35:53] Checks are nowhere near effective enough when sending
[35:57] sexual offenders and domestic violence offenders back out into
[36:01] the community. Dangerous people slip through
[36:04] the cracks all the time. Meanwhile, the list of women
[36:08] murdered by violent men just continues to grow.
[36:12] In 2022, one in three women over the age of 16 were harassed in
[36:18] some way. And when that age window is
[36:20] shrunk down a little, there women between the ages of 16 and
[36:24] 34, that statistic rises to two in three women have been
[36:29] harassed in the UK in 2022. And that statistic just blew my
[36:35] mind in the worst way possible. Two in three women.
[36:40] And one of the biggest issues here is that there is so much
[36:44] sexism and misogyny within the British police force.
[36:48] We've got officers that hold these outdated misogynistic
[36:52] views or they just don't understand the dynamics of male
[36:56] violence towards women. And then there are these
[36:58] probation officers that don't fully understand what kind of
[37:02] behaviour is seriously dangerous to women.
[37:05] For example, some officers might see like repeated unwanted
[37:10] advances to women as just like an annoying boys will be boys
[37:14] kind of behaviour when clearly when we have evidence in cases
[37:18] like this, it can end in murder and it will end in murder if
[37:23] these kind of people aren't taken care of properly by the
[37:27] justice system. On August 17th, just nine days
[37:31] before he murdered Zara, Jordan was released from prison on a
[37:35] medium risk probation. So they even admit based on this
[37:39] classification that he is somewhat dangerous to society,
[37:44] but not too dangerous to need the strictest control.
[37:48] But here's the crazy thing, while Jordan was in prison, he
[37:51] was still violent. He was always making threats to
[37:55] different inmates and even to prison guards.
[37:57] And at one point he was found with a weapon.
[38:00] So how on earth is someone like that classed as medium risk and
[38:04] not high risk when they're even still trying to offend from
[38:08] behind bars? And especially given his long,
[38:11] long, long history with violence and crime in general, he hasn't
[38:17] shown any signs of slowing down his violent and aggressive
[38:20] behaviour. So why are we releasing him and
[38:23] expecting him to stop? Often the most frustrating parts
[38:27] of these cases that we cover on this channel are the police
[38:30] failings. But especially in Zara's case,
[38:33] you can't help but feel like she would still be here today if the
[38:37] whole system wasn't just so broken.
[38:47] So let's talk about what Jordan's probation was supposed
[38:50] to be, because remember, he went against all the rules of his
[38:54] probation, never went to any of his meetings, so he never stuck
[38:57] to it anywhere. But this is what it was supposed
[38:59] to be. Literally the first rule was
[39:01] that he had to live at a specified address, so he had to
[39:05] give the police an exact address where they would be able to find
[39:08] him. Already fucked up at the first
[39:10] hurdle. He didn't do that.
[39:11] He was supposed to follow a curfew, meet regularly with his
[39:15] probation officer and take part in rehab programs.
[39:18] Plus he had to report any changes in his situation.
[39:21] So if his specified address changed, I mean, he was allowed
[39:24] to do that. He just had to let the police
[39:26] know first. But of course, he didn't stick
[39:29] to like any of these rules. He did give police a specified
[39:33] address in the first instance, but he never actually lived
[39:37] there. He said that he was going to be
[39:38] living with his grandma for a bit because his mum didn't want
[39:41] him when he left prison. But on May 27th, police went to
[39:44] his grandma's house to go and discuss this situation and she
[39:48] refused to have him. All of his own family knew how
[39:51] antisocial and aggressive he was and none of them wanted to be
[39:55] around him. So that actually left Jordan
[39:58] without a clear address when he was released on June 17th.
[40:02] And forgive me if I'm wrong, but.
[40:04] Is that allowed a police allowed to do that?
[40:08] If it's literally the rules of Jordan's probation to know where
[40:11] he's going to be, why didn't they keep him in prison until he
[40:15] could give them an actual specified address?
[40:18] I guess because probation officers were overwhelmed with
[40:22] cases or whatever and there weren't enough trained officers.
[40:24] Maybe that's why, but I don't know.
[40:27] Just fucking put him back in prison.
[40:28] Don't let him out. If he can't give you a specified
[40:31] address that you can monitor him at, then don't let him out in
[40:36] it. I, I know I'm just Ellen and
[40:39] Neil sitting in the chair. I don't have anything to do with
[40:41] police or the justice system, but it seems pretty fucking
[40:44] simple to me. Doesn't not On the day that
[40:46] Jordan was released from prison. He was supposed to have his
[40:48] first meeting with his probation officer that he already did not
[40:52] turn up to. So police tried to figure out
[40:55] where he is because, I mean, it's only been a few hours.
[40:57] He can't have gone too far. They call his mum and she says,
[41:01] yeah, he's just appeared at my house.
[41:03] He is completely belligerently drunk out of his head.
[41:07] So but instead of doing anything, police just
[41:10] rescheduled his probation meeting for three days time.
[41:14] But Jordan missed that one too. And this time no one knew where
[41:18] he was. Not his mother, not his
[41:20] grandmother, no one knew where he could be.
[41:23] And it was after he missed 1/3 meeting on June 22nd that police
[41:28] asked for him to be recalled to prison.
[41:30] But the recall paperwork wasn't signed for 48 hours, it was just
[41:36] sat on some senior officers desk for two days.
[41:40] It was officially signed on June 24th, which this delay in it
[41:45] getting signed is already an issue.
[41:47] I mean officially there is no deadline when it comes to
[41:50] signing these things, but I believe they have a 24 hour aim.
[41:54] I mean, obviously the general aim of solving crimes and
[41:59] detaining criminals is to act as quickly as possible to ensure
[42:02] the public safety. Otherwise delays like this can
[42:06] have serious and fatal consequences.
[42:09] As we are talking about right now.
[42:11] This delay meant that Jordan had two extra days of freedom and no
[42:16] supervision. It basically gave him the
[42:19] opportunity to commit such a horrific attack.
[42:22] After Zara's death, her family were of course devastated and
[42:26] grieving, but they knew they wanted to control the narrative
[42:30] and protect Zara from any victim blaming because unfortunately,
[42:35] it always happens way too fucking much.
[42:37] As I've said a few times in this video, Zara was the rock of her
[42:41] family. She was very dependable.
[42:43] She was always the one that stepped in during a crisis.
[42:46] In an interview, her aunt Farah said if it had been me who was
[42:49] murdered right now, it would be Zara sitting in front of you.
[42:53] In fact, her Aunt Farah became kind of like the family
[42:56] spokesperson. She was the one that handled the
[42:58] media and the police. And just three days after Zara's
[43:01] death, her family put out this incredibly powerful statement
[43:05] that said she was fierce. She didn't just survive, she
[43:09] thrived. She walked everywhere.
[43:11] She put her party shoes in a bag and donned her trainers.
[43:15] She walked. Zara believed that a woman would
[43:17] be able to walk home. They weren't going to let what
[43:21] happened to Zara take away from her fight for justice and her
[43:25] legacy of empowering women. All of that passion that was
[43:28] once in her was now coming out through everyone that loved her.
[43:33] Over the years, Zara and her friends had often shared their
[43:36] fears surrounding women's safety and victim blaming.
[43:39] It was something that all of them saw way too often and they
[43:43] felt very hopeless to change it. Don't we all?
[43:47] Whenever another tragic case of a woman's death hit the news,
[43:51] Zara and her friends would all be texting about it, furious,
[43:54] frustrated, devastated, and again, hopeless.
[43:58] Zara once said. It's such shit that you can take
[44:01] all these precautions and they'll still find another thing
[44:05] to say that you did wrong. Zara was so aware of all of the
[44:09] forces stacked against women, but that never stopped her from
[44:13] living her life so freely and independently.
[44:17] Unappolished energetically, she fought for justice for others.
[44:20] And so now I feel like we owe it to Zara to keep fighting in her
[44:25] name. One week after her death,
[44:27] hundreds of people gathered at Cranbrook Rd.
[44:30] They were there to walk Zara home.
[44:33] Everyone was dressed in white, holding signs with Zara's
[44:36] picture on and notes for her. They were carrying flowers.
[44:39] They walked in silence and when they reached her front door,
[44:43] they left the tributes on her front doorstep.
[44:45] On December 14th, 2022, Jordan Mcsweeney's hearing began at the
[44:50] Old Bailey Courthouse in London. He pled guilty to the sexual
[44:55] assault and murder of Zara Alina.
[44:58] It was an icy cold day in London, but the streets were
[45:01] buzzing and packed with women and activists and of course, all
[45:06] of Zara's friends and family. Everyone was outside of that
[45:09] courthouse, with placards and signs and pictures of Zara.
[45:14] There were people from the charity Refuge, which is a
[45:16] charity for women and children victims of abuse, the campaign
[45:20] group reclaimed. These streets had also gathered
[45:23] outside to demand an end to violence against women and
[45:27] girls. Inside, the courthouse was
[45:29] packed to the the public gallery was full of her family and
[45:32] friends. The press hall was full of
[45:35] people from all across the country reporting on this case.
[45:38] Zara's mother, who had obviously been struggling so much since
[45:43] the death of her daughter, she couldn't face going to the trial
[45:47] that day. And I really don't blame her.
[45:50] But so many other members of Zara's family were there.
[45:53] A bunch of her aunts, her grandmother.
[45:55] The only place in the whole courtroom that was still empty
[46:00] was the DOC. Jordan McSweeney had refused to
[46:04] attend his own trial. He wouldn't leave his prison
[46:08] cell. In the UK, if a person pleads
[46:10] guilty like Jordan had, by law they aren't necessarily required
[46:15] to show up for their trial or their sentencing hearing.
[46:19] Which is just mad to me. And this bit makes it even
[46:22] worse. His lawyer told the court that
[46:24] Jordan didn't want to come because he didn't want to see
[46:26] the CCTV footage and quote live that night.
[46:32] Are you fucking serious? Why does he have that right?
[46:36] He doesn't want to relive that night so he doesn't have to.
[46:40] This makes me so angry. He should have been there to
[46:43] watch every single second of CCTV footage and he should have
[46:48] been made to look her family in the eyes as they made their
[46:51] impact statements. Just in general, he should have
[46:55] been made to face what he did, and by not showing up at the
[46:58] court, he was taking the coward's way out.
[47:01] His lawyer presented A psychological report that stated
[47:05] that Jordan grew up in a really messed up home situation.
[47:08] There was a lot of domestic violence at home.
[47:10] Apparently one of his earliest memories was of his father
[47:14] trying to drown his mother in a bathtub, which is just awful.
[47:19] He had been exposed to such an extreme level of violence at
[47:24] such an early age. It was like all he knew, and now
[47:28] the fact that he was in and out of prison since a child seems to
[47:31] make a lot of sense. If those were the kind of role
[47:34] models that he had in his life, then of course he turned out
[47:37] like that. And the judge agreed that
[47:39] Jordan's upbringing was awful. And I think if we put it in a
[47:43] vacuum, we can all agree that that childhood is traumatic, But
[47:47] nothing from his childhood could ever explain his actions.
[47:52] On the night that he murdered and sexually assaulted Zara
[47:55] Alina, he actually asked for a reduced sentence, claiming that
[48:00] he accepted responsibility for his actions, but he was rejected
[48:04] from having a reduced sentence. The judge actually said he never
[48:07] displayed any remorse. She sentenced Jordan McSweeney
[48:11] to life in prison with a minimum of 38 years, but again, he
[48:16] wasn't there to see or hear this in person because he refused to
[48:19] move from his cell. Zara's birthday was on December
[48:23] 9th, just five days before Jordan was sentenced, and she
[48:27] would have turned 36 years old. Zara Ali had been robbed of
[48:32] everything that she worked for, of everything that she was and
[48:36] everything that she was yet to become.
[48:38] On August 28th, 2 months after Zara was killed, about 100
[48:43] people came together outside of Ilford Town Hall to protest
[48:47] March in her memory. It was organized by a local
[48:50] group called Walk It Out. They went all the way up
[48:52] Cranbrook Rd. and they stopped right across from the driveway
[48:56] where Zara was attacked and when they arrived there, there was
[49:00] still tributes laid out for her at the scene of the crime, a
[49:04] printed picture of her and some flowers.
[49:07] Her Aunt Farrah had joined this March and when they arrived at
[49:10] the destination at the place that her niece was brutally
[49:14] murdered, she pointed up to the CCTV camera that had caught
[49:19] every single second of it. It was important to her that
[49:22] everyone remember that the man that did this to Zara didn't
[49:26] care that he was going to be caught on camera.
[49:28] He only wanted to hurt A woman and he didn't care what happened
[49:32] after. But on this particular March
[49:34] that they did, it wasn't just Zara's face on the signs that
[49:38] they were carrying because in the months before and after her
[49:41] death, multiple other women had been killed on the streets of
[49:45] London. Two of the women whose faces
[49:47] were on these signs, we actually covered their tragic case just a
[49:51] few months ago, their names were Bieber, Henry and Nicole
[49:54] Smallman. On June 5th 2020, the two
[49:57] sisters went to a park in London to celebrate Bieber's birthday
[50:01] and that night they were murdered by a man that, just
[50:04] like Jordan McSweeney, had been stalking them in the darkness
[50:09] for a while before killing them. Then if that wasn't bad enough,
[50:13] 2 police officers. Police officers took photos of
[50:18] the girls dead bodies when they were supposed to be guarding
[50:21] them and protecting their dignity.
[50:24] They took photos of their corpses and sent them into a
[50:27] WhatsApp group with 40 people in it, making all kinds of
[50:31] misogynistic comments. And their murders happened just
[50:34] two years before the murder of Zara Alina.
[50:37] Violence against women is on the rise, not only in the UK, but
[50:42] everywhere in the world. It's about power, control and
[50:46] misogyny. Zara had a right to be safe.
[50:49] So did Bieber, so did Nicole, so did so many others.
[50:54] Honestly, we don't talk enough about how cautious women have to
[50:57] be when they're walking alone, especially, especially at night.
[51:01] We have to be careful about listening to music or a podcast
[51:04] with headphones on, just in case someone sneaks up behind us.
[51:07] We need to be able to hear them. We have to hold our keys in
[51:10] between our fingers just in case we need a weapon for self
[51:13] defence at a moment's notice. We're constantly looking over
[51:17] our shoulders, avoiding walking by bushes in case there's
[51:20] someone hiding inside. We can't take shortcuts because
[51:23] they're often dark alleys where no one's around to hear a
[51:27] scream. And when we get home, we have to
[51:29] be careful unlocking the door because someone might be right
[51:32] behind us and follow us into our own house.
[51:35] And then even once we get inside, we can't turn the lights
[51:38] on right away for fear that someone's outside watching,
[51:41] waiting to see which one we go into.
[51:44] It's so constant and relentless and exhausting.
[51:49] And before I end this video, because I understand this is a
[51:52] very devastating and hopeless note to end this case on, I do
[51:56] want to propel some charities that are doing amazing, amazing
[52:00] things to protect women. So if any of you are able to
[52:04] donate to any of these organizations or even just read
[52:07] up on some of the work they do and help to join the fight, then
[52:11] please do walk it out. The group that we mentioned
[52:14] earlier is a local group based in Ilford that aims to empower
[52:18] young females and women. They organize community walks,
[52:21] creating a safe and supportive environment, building local
[52:25] women's confidence to live their lives.
[52:28] Refuge supports thousands, thousands of women and children
[52:31] who seek to escape domestic abuse situations.
[52:35] They provide essential services, essential products.
[52:39] Actually, a lot of the time, some women and children have to
[52:42] escape their situation with nothing more than the clothes on
[52:45] their backs. You can contribute to that
[52:48] support by donating through their website or by adding your
[52:52] voice to their fight against domestic abuse.
[52:55] You can sign petitions. You can join protests, you can
[52:58] raise awareness on your social media.
[53:01] Honestly, there are so many free ways to add your voice to this
[53:06] fight. Reclaim These Streets is a
[53:08] social justice organization that was founded in 2021 and they aim
[53:13] to use legislation, education and Community Action to try to
[53:17] make the streets an actually safe place for women to be.
[53:21] They organize vigils and marchers to honour women who
[53:25] have suffered violence and to advocate for their safety and
[53:28] rights. Zara's family have said that she
[53:31] would have been out there fighting with us, fighting
[53:34] against this growing violence that women are facing every day.
[53:38] She walked alone, exercising her right to do so.
[53:42] Zara's right was stolen from her in the worst way, but now we owe
[53:47] it to her to keep going in her memory.
[53:50] For Zara and for every woman, we have to keep walking and never
[53:55] stop. All of the links to the
[53:57] charities and organizations that we spoke about will be in the a
[54:00] description of this episode. And as I've said, please do
[54:03] check them out and donate if you have the money to do so.
[54:09] Thank you so much for listening to Usual Disclaimer.
[54:12] At this point, I just want to say that if you've been affected
[54:15] by any of the topics we discussed today, please check
[54:18] the description where we've left some helpful resources.
[54:21] If you want to hear more cases like this one, make sure to
[54:24] follow Usual Disclaimer on your podcast app so that you get
[54:27] notifications when we post new episodes.
[54:29] And if you really enjoyed, I'd love it if you could leave a
[54:32] rating and a review too. Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor
[54:36] Neil is an Audio Boom Studios production.
[54:38] See you next time.

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