Jamie MacArthur, now 58, ended up in headlines across Australia after targeting a young woman who was visiting Melbourne in 2017 for the city’s fashion week. The 22-year-old, whom he had followed on to a tram, had mouthed “help” to fellow passengers but the plea went unheeded.
He was initially sentenced in 2018 to seven years and nine months’ imprisonment for what the judge characterised as “brazen, predatory and unwanted” conduct. During the hearing, the judge took into account the additional anxiety MacArthur might feel knowing he was likely to face deportation at the conclusion of his sentence.
The case re-emerged in headlines the following year, when prosecutors successfully lobbied the Victoria Court of Appeal for a longer sentence, arguing that the one imposed in 2018 was “manifestly inadequate”.
MacArthur was then ordered to serve a sentence of nine years and nine months’ imprisonment, with a minimum term of imprisonment of six years and four months before he could begin applying for parole.
He arrived back in New Zealand as a 501 deportee in January 2025.
‘Rubbed his nipples’
MacArthur had only been released from jail hours before the March 2017 rape – having been placed in a holding cell as police waited for him to sober up following a nearly hour-long rampage of nuisance behaviour in Melbourne’s central business district.
“During that time the respondent was observed to be behaving in a threatening and aggressive manner, and assaulting members of the public by pushing, punching and kicking them”, according to a summary of events cited by the Victoria Court of Appeal.
Inside a shopping complex, he stole a bottle of juice before approaching two women.
“While speaking to one of them, he lifted his shirt and rubbed his nipples, before putting his fingers in his mouth and licking them,” documents state. “He then touched another female on the arm with his fingers, which he had just removed from his mouth.”
After returning outside, he approached a woman who “took fright and ran away”, chasing her to a tram before giving up.
Bourke St in Melbourne, Australia.
“The respondent then approached a woman in Bourke Street, blocked her path, and began to follow her,” court documents state. “He desisted when another male intervened.”
He pestered and intimidated two other women before police arrived to arrest him at 5.20pm.
For those charges, MacArthur pleaded guilty to 13 counts of common assault and one count of theft, with the sentences for those crimes running concurrent with his rape sentences.
‘You’re not going to leave’
MacArthur was released on bail at 9.37pm. At 4.49 the following morning, he began targeting the woman he would later rape as she waited at a tram station after a night out socialising with friends.
“He told her that she looked pretty and he invited her back to his place to drink alcohol,” documents state. “The victim responded that she had to go home for the night. The respondent then began to pull the victim by the arm, forcing her to come with him.”
When the woman repeated that she needed to go home, he responded: “You’re not going to leave me now, are you?”
He followed her through the city and on to another tram.
“He continued to grab at the victim and tried to pull her towards him to kiss her,” court documents state.
“The victim was frightened, and she thought that it was better to placate the respondent, so at one point she returned his kiss. She made eye contact with two male passengers and mouthed the word ‘Help’, but they did not respond.”
The woman tried to escape when the tram stopped outside Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, running for the locked hospital entrance. He followed and said he wouldn’t let her go in.
“We are going to f*** tonight,” he responded angrily when the woman tried to convince him she was there to visit a friend.
Terror caught on CCTV
MacArthur was filmed on the hospital’s CCTV as he grabbed the woman and forcibly dragged her away from the doors. The woman ran back to the door after getting thrown to the ground and pushed a bell, hoping in vain to be let inside. MacArthur followed her to the door, began grinding against her, then sexually assaulted her.
“At that stage, he had the victim trapped in the corner by the entry doors, and he continued to fondle and kiss her,” the Court of Appeal noted. “He then put the victim in a headlock and dragged her around by the neck to the opposite side of the alcove.”
As the two wrestled on a hand railing, he tried twice more to sexually assault her.
At that point, the respondent again put the victim in a headlock and proceeded to drag her around, attempting to pull her away from the doors (charge 19 — common assault).
“At least a part of that episode was witnessed by two members of hospital security, who, for no apparent reason, did nothing to intervene to assist the victim,” the courts noted. “The respondent then dragged the victim out of the entrance alcove and on to the street, where she fell to the ground.”
‘Went for it’
A hospital cleaner walking to work saw MacArthur holding the victim by the hair and kicking her legs.
The woman was finally able to break away and get inside the hospital. Security tried to speak with her but by that point she was unresponsive and in shock. MacArthur also went inside the hospital, asking her to leave with him. She refused.
He finally left the hospital after trying to kick a security guard and kicking and punching the glass doors when they wouldn’t open. He was arrested about 12 hours later. Police did not release him the second time.
“He said to the police that he knew that he was being overly aggressive, but he believed that he had ‘scored’ with the victim, so he just ‘went for it’,” court documents state.
In evaluating the initial sentence, the Court of Appeal noted that MacArthur had no prior sexual offences on his record and had admitted guilt at a very early stage. Another mitigating factor, it was noted, was his own traumatic childhood that led to an early dependence on alcohol.
But the justices also noted that the courts had a duty to protect women, and to make it clear that such offending was “entirely unacceptable and reprehensible”.
“It must have been plain to him, or, had he bothered to reflect about it, it would have been, that the ordeal to which he subjected the victim was terrifying and degrading,” they noted in their decision.
Another young woman targeted
MacArthur had moved to Australia in his early 20s. He had been unemployed for about 20 years at the time of offending, receiving a benefit.
Like all 501 deportees, he was subject to a parole-like “returning offenders order” upon his arrival in New Zealand. Among the rules was an abstinence from alcohol.
But the restrictions didn’t stop him two weeks after his arrival from getting intoxicated on Ponsonby Rd and approaching a young woman.
“Hey young lady, do you wanna f***?” he said before following her and touching her buttocks.
He continued to make “explicit statements expressing his sexual intentions” and “asserting his entitlement to sexual access with her” until police arrived.
This time, he was sentenced to four and a half months’ imprisonment.
In October, MacArthur’s returning offender order – which he had violated several times aside from the Ponsonby incident – was extended until next October. Additional conditions were added, including an electronically monitored curfew from 7pm to 7am.
Kava danger?
In the High Court at Auckland last month, Crown prosecutor Brett Tantrum, representing the Department of Corrections, asked Justice Geoffrey Venning to also impose an interim supervision order to run in tandem with the returning offender order.
Although both orders have similar restrictions, prosecutors suggested an interim supervision order would allow for MacArthur to also undergo intensive monitoring – allowing for 24-hour monitoring – and a restriction on consuming kava.
Crown prosecutor Brett Tantrum. Photo / Michael Craig
Alcohol, Tantrum noted, has been “the real challenge” for MacArthur in the past, causing the disinhibition that contributed to his earlier offences. The problem, the judge was told, is that MacArthur appears to have replaced alcohol with kava.
The drink, traditional in many Pacific cultures, “is often used for sedative, hypnotic and muscle-relaxant effects, in much the same way that alcohol is used”, according to Australia’s Alcohol and Drug Foundation. But it has increased in popularity in Australia over the decades “as a substitute for alcohol, to reduce alcohol-related harms in the community”, the organisation states.
MacArthur did not drink kava for cultural purposes, the court was told.
“He initially described its effect as ‘numbing’ to his probation officer and told her that it calmed him down,” Justice Venning noted. “However, his probation officer is concerned that he also described it as having the effect of ‘being drunk and hungover at the same time’.
“She was also concerned that as Mr MacArthur’s research disclosed that kava use would not show on an alcohol and drug test, he considered he could continue to use it as he was not in breach of his ROO [returning offender order] in doing so.”
But defence lawyer Jane-Frances O’Halloran argued that an additional set of restrictions was not warranted when MacArthur has had no issues since the last set of restrictions were added in October. More conditions, she said, would be unnecessary, overreaching and inconsistent with his rights.
She acknowledged that alcohol has been a trigger for her client, but she also noted that he had not engaged in any serious sexual offending since his release from jail in mid-2025.
“I note, however, he has been subject to the ROO conditions since then, which may well explain why he has not re-offended,” Justice Venning said.
Justice Geoffrey Venning. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The judge agreed with prosecutors that MacArthur has “a pervasive pattern of serious sexual offending” and remains a high risk of future offending. But that risk has already been tempered by the current restrictions, he said.
The judge added that “there is no cogent evidence before the court” to suggest kava use has “the same disinhibiting factors that alcohol has on Mr MacArthur’s behaviour”.
“There may be a degree of self-harm in terms of Mr MacArthur’s use of it in conjunction with other medication but that is not a matter which the court needs to engage with, and it does not justify the imposition of IM to police such a condition,” the judge added.
The judge noted that an interim supervision would be a temporary solution anyway. Authorities are also awaiting a hearing to seek an extended supervision order, which could add restrictions for a further 10 years.
That hearing, the judge suggested, would optimally be held before the expiration in October of MacArthur’s current conditions.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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