What Happened to Zara?

Zara Aleena said goodbye to a friend after spending a quiet evening together in East London. Before leaving, she changed out of her heels, put on her trainers and began walking home. It was a warm summer night. Zara was walking along a well-lit residential street. Cars were passing. People were nearby. Windows were open.

As she walked, she was followed by a stranger.

The judge who later sentenced the man responsible described Zara's death as the result of a "fatal coincidence". He was looking for a victim and, tragically, he found one in Zara, a young woman simply making her way home. Zara was stalked, sexually assaulted and murdered. She was 35 years old.

In the days and months that followed, our family struggled to make sense of what had happened. Zara was doing what millions of women do every day. She was walking home after an evening with a friend. She should have arrived safely. She did not.

As more information emerged, we learned that the man who killed Zara had recently been released from prison. In the days before her murder, he had repeatedly breached the conditions of his release. He should have been recalled to custody. Attempts were made to locate him, but he was not found.

We also learned of a series of missed opportunities, missed interventions and failures across the agencies responsible for managing him. The more we learned, the harder it became to accept that Zara's death had not been inevitable. In the months and years that followed, investigations, reviews and an inquest examined the circumstances surrounding Zara's murder.

Understanding what happened to Zara means understanding not only the actions of one violent offender, but also the failures that allowed him to remain free when he should have been in custody. The next section explores the systems and decisions that failed to protect her.