A coroner has told the Metropolitan Police and the Probation Service to improve their services or risk future deaths, after Zara Aleena was raped and murdered in 2022.

Jordan McSweeney was jailed for life at the Old Bailey after attacking 35-year-old Ms Aleena as she walked home from a night out in east London.

Nadia Persaud, area coroner for east London, said in a report there was a lack of “rigour, detail and independence” in the Met investigation as well as low staffing levels within the Probation Service.

The report comes after Ms Aleena’s inquest in June, in which a jury found “the failure of multiple state agencies” contributed to her death.

In the prevention of future deaths report published on Friday, Ms Persaud raised concerns about a “lack of independence” in the Met over its handling of the case review.

Ms Persaud said an “independent, rapid investigation” was carried out by the force’s Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) which reached “clear and valuable findings”.

Despite this, she said the findings of the DPS investigator “were however rejected by more senior officers within the Met”.

“The officers who rejected the findings were not independent.”

The coroner added the probation delivery unit responsible for managing McSweeney had been “understaffed”, with staffing levels at 61% in 2022, and 58% at the time of the inquest in June 2024.