Probation service failings ‘left Jordan McSweeney free to kill Zara Aleena’

Failings by probation officers left a sexual predator “free” to stalk and kill the law graduate Zara Aleena just days after he was released from jail, according to a watchdog.

Justin Russell, the chief inspector of probation, highlighted a series of errors in the Probation Service’s handling of Jordan McSweeney which meant that he was not treated as a high-risk offender when he should have been.

McSweeney, 29, was given a life sentence and jailed for at least 38 years last month after admitting a “terrifying and ruthless” attack on Aleena, 35, in Ilford, east London, in June.

Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, ordered a review of how probation staff supervised McSweeney, who had a string of convictions and a history of violence, when it