{"id":563611,"date":"2026-08-09T09:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T09:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/563611\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T09:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T09:10:11","slug":"caleb-kahn-heke-mcleod-jailed-for-filming-himself-raping-unconscious-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/563611\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Kahn Heke McLeod jailed for filming himself raping unconscious woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge Philip Crayton noted that the offending had been \u201csignificantly traumatic\u201d<\/a> for the victim, and she now faced a \u201cdifficult and trying journey towards being able to have peace in her day-to-day life\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the night of the offending, McLeod and the victim were drinking together. <\/p>\n

She became so intoxicated that she passed out. When she woke the next day, she had no memory of what had happened.<\/p>\n

However, while she was asleep, McLeod partly undressed her and made nine video recordings, exposing her breasts and genitalia.<\/p>\n

In one video, he performed an indecent act next to her face. The videos also showed him sexually assaulting and raping her.<\/p>\n

The following week, McLeod became aggressive and screamed at the woman in public. She walked away feeling embarrassed.<\/p>\n

Later, McLeod continued his tirade of abuse, which prompted the victim to try to leave the situation. <\/p>\n

McLeod ripped her bags apart, threw them at a wall, and pushed her.<\/p>\n

She tried to leave again, and he ripped the bags from her hands, pushed her into a wall, and told her she wasn\u2019t leaving.<\/p>\n

The victim was so scared that she stayed.<\/p>\n

The next morning, she found the videos on McLeod\u2019s phone in a hidden, password-protected file.<\/p>\n

She recorded them on her phone and then deleted them from his phone before trying to leave.<\/p>\n

However, McLeod woke up, so she confronted him about the videos.<\/p>\n

He told her that, if she told anyone, he would hurt her mother or sister.<\/p>\n

\u2018There is a pattern emerging\u2019<\/p>\n

In discussions with McLeod\u2019s counsel, Jarom Keung, about further credits at sentencing, Judge Crayton said remorse was a \u201cpretty hard sell\u201d, given McLeod\u2019s comments in a report that \u201cidentify some degree of seeking to pass, in some way, an element of culpability onto someone else\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keung said his client accepted responsibility for what happened.<\/p>\n

The judge added that McLeod was intoxicated at the time, and that was an ongoing issue for him.<\/p>\n

Together with his criminal history, it showed a \u201cpropensity for violence towards women in different ways going back to quite a young age\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is an escalation, and that is a concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton said he was not convinced McLeod deserved any additional discount for remorse, which was already recognised through his guilty plea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He urged the board and Corrections to read about the details of McLeod\u2019s violence convictions from 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a pattern emerging which is of great concern, and I am sure that the Parole Board\u2019s central concern will be that, when you are released, you are safe to be in the community amongst such vulnerable females.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge acknowledged that alcohol \u201cwas a major issue\u201d for McLeod, and said he had also been known to \u201cuse and abuse both methamphetamine and cannabis\u201d.<\/p>\n

He took an overall starting point of nine years and two months\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

McLeod was jailed for six years, one month and three weeks.<\/p>\n

Judge Crayton also issued a first-strike warning.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judge Philip Crayton noted that the offending had been \u201csignificantly traumatic\u201d for the victim, and she now faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17704,61290,181,8912,99278,2082,170433,8241,14641,277119,161105,111,139,69,34458,51246,6289,17703,544,213,427,1961,67355,1455,1354],"class_list":["post-563611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-assault","tag-caleb","tag-details","tag-distressing","tag-filming","tag-for","tag-heke","tag-himself","tag-jailed","tag-kahn","tag-mcleod","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rape","tag-raping","tag-readers","tag-sexual","tag-some","tag-sports","tag-story","tag-this","tag-unconscious","tag-warning","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}