Monster rapist lurked on Gold Coast streets

BRADLEY McLeod had been injecting ice daily for more than a decade when he broke into a Gold Coast woman’s home, viciously bashing and raping her.

BRADLEY McLeod had been injecting ice daily for more than a decade when he broke into a Gold Coast woman’s home, viciously bashing and raping her.

Despite being before the courts for a string of drug and violent offences since 2007, the 28-year-old man had only served 12 months in jail before the brutal attack, raising questions about why he was on the streets.

He is now back behind bars, this time for 13 years, after being convicted of the random rape and attack of the woman in her own Arundel home, which he cannot even remember because he was so drugged at the time.

Bradley McLeod. He is pictured here leaving Mackay court in 2011. Photo: Daily Mercury

“He doesn’t have any detailed recollection of the events himself and after reading the material it’s hard to gauge what his recollection is (and what he has read),” his defence barrister Bernard Reilly told the court.

But the victim remembers it clearly, telling the court in her impact statement she scratches the skin on her body, feeling like she’ll never be clean again.

“I still jump at every bump in the night,” she told the court. “My husband helped as best as he could, it was almost as if he couldn’t process what happened ... (not only) the horror from this abhorrent situation but the deep sorrow that has occurred.”

On December 21, 2014, McLeod hid in the home the Arundel woman shared with her husband, with a sex toy vibrating in his pants. He waited for her to return from her Sunday afternoon jog before clubbing her on the head.

The court was told he was too high on ice to remember “repeatedly” punching his victim in the face before dragging her bleeding through multiple rooms in the house, attempting to tie her up and eventually raping her in the lounge room.

After he raped her he dragged her by the arms into the shower, in an act Crown prosecutor Judith Geary described as an attempt “to remove evidence of his offending”.

Following the attack, the woman escaped and ran to her neighbours wearing nothing but a singlet, bleeding from a broken nose and gashes to her head.

McLeod had been before courts in Mackay in 2011 for knife possession and drug offences and was convicted of the aggravated burglary of a 17-year-old woman in Western Australia in 2007 but walked free with a 12-month suspended sentence.

In 2008, he was convicted of assault occasioning bodily harm and deprivation of liberty, spending just 12 months in prison.

Mr Reilly, instructed by Cooper Maloy Legal, told the court McLeod was a completely different person off drugs.

“His behaviour in prison has been beyond reproach – he is courteous and polite and does what he is required to do,” he said.

McLeod must serve 80 per cent of his sentence before being eligible for parole.