Judge Philip Crayton noted that the offending had been “significantly traumatic” for the victim, and she now faced a “difficult and trying journey towards being able to have peace in her day-to-day life”.
On the night of the offending, McLeod and the victim were drinking together.
She became so intoxicated that she passed out. When she woke the next day, she had no memory of what had happened.
However, while she was asleep, McLeod partly undressed her and made nine video recordings, exposing her breasts and genitalia.
In one video, he performed an indecent act next to her face. The videos also showed him sexually assaulting and raping her.
The following week, McLeod became aggressive and screamed at the woman in public. She walked away feeling embarrassed.
Later, McLeod continued his tirade of abuse, which prompted the victim to try to leave the situation.
McLeod ripped her bags apart, threw them at a wall, and pushed her.
She tried to leave again, and he ripped the bags from her hands, pushed her into a wall, and told her she wasn’t leaving.
The victim was so scared that she stayed.
The next morning, she found the videos on McLeod’s phone in a hidden, password-protected file.
She recorded them on her phone and then deleted them from his phone before trying to leave.
However, McLeod woke up, so she confronted him about the videos.
He told her that, if she told anyone, he would hurt her mother or sister.
‘There is a pattern emerging’
In discussions with McLeod’s counsel, Jarom Keung, about further credits at sentencing, Judge Crayton said remorse was a “pretty hard sell”, given McLeod’s comments in a report that “identify some degree of seeking to pass, in some way, an element of culpability onto someone else”.
Keung said his client accepted responsibility for what happened.
The judge added that McLeod was intoxicated at the time, and that was an ongoing issue for him.
Together with his criminal history, it showed a “propensity for violence towards women in different ways going back to quite a young age”.
“And this is an escalation, and that is a concern.”
Judge Crayton said he was not convinced McLeod deserved any additional discount for remorse, which was already recognised through his guilty plea.
“I understand that you accept that the responsibility for what you did this day … and your decision to make this intimate visual recording as you violated the complainant was yours and yours alone.”
However, the judge agreed not to impose a minimum non-parole period, and instead left the timing of any release up to the Parole Board.
He urged the board and Corrections to read about the details of McLeod’s violence convictions from 2021 and 2022.
“There is a pattern emerging which is of great concern, and I am sure that the Parole Board’s central concern will be that, when you are released, you are safe to be in the community amongst such vulnerable females.”
The judge acknowledged that alcohol “was a major issue” for McLeod, and said he had also been known to “use and abuse both methamphetamine and cannabis”.
He took an overall starting point of nine years and two months’ imprisonment, before allowing a 25% credit for his guilty pleas and 10% for his background, but then increasing the sentence by 2% for his criminal history.
McLeod was jailed for six years, one month and three weeks.
Judge Crayton also issued a first-strike warning.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.