A Moment in Crime is a NZ Herald crime podcast, with new episodes out every month.
A Moment in Crime is a NZ Herald crime podcast, with new episodes out every month.
In the last episode of Herald podcast A Moment In Crime for 2024 writer and host Anna Leask revisits some of the strangest but lesser-known cases she has covered over the past 19 years. Some of these cases did not make national headlines, others were overshadowed by other major news events or crimes. But every case was significant to the community - particularly the victims and others impacted. Today Leask looks back at cases from 2005 to 2024. If there are other cases you would like to hear more about email anna.leask@nzme.co.nz.
More than 1.1 million crimes were committed in New Zealand in the 10 years ending September 2024.
Only a small number of these serious crimes are covered by the media.
It’s simply not possible to publish stories on every offence or offender. So what the public read about in the news really is the tip of the iceberg.
In the 19 years Anna Leask has been a crime and justice reporter, she has told countless stories about offending in New Zealand - who is behind it, who is hurt by it and the lasting impact.
She has covered many of the most high-profile cases including more than 130 murders, and dozens upon dozens of prosecutions and trials for manslaughter, sexual assaults and abuse, domestic violence and child abuse.
She has also written a lot about our country’s most enduring cold cases and best-known historic crimes.
But there are other cases that have stayed in the forefront of her mind.
“In today’s episode of A Moment In Crime I wanted to take you back through some of the other cases I have written about for the NZHerald, Herald on Sunday and Christchurch Star where I began my journalism career,” she said.
“These cases may not have dominated the headlines for as long or as widely as others - but they are cases I think about often.
“But, they are all important cases on New Zealand’s crime timeline.”
December 2006: The monster next door
In December 2006, a 24-year-old man was kidnapped by his neighbour and subjected to a horrendous 17-hour sexual assault.
It later emerged that the offender was well known to police and was being monitored in a bid to prevent that exact situation.
The day before New Year’s Eve, the victim was in his room at a central Christchurch boarding house. He was 24, had recently moved to the city for a job and was at the boarding house while he looked for a flat.
After the sentence had been handed down, Leask was able to report exactly why the sex offender was such a risk.
After he was jailed the full story behind Johnathon Andrew Smallbon could be revealed.
About six months before the assault, Smallbon was deported from Australia after serving prison time for sex offences against two young men.
On July 2, 1998, Smallbon appeared in court for the first time on charges of kidnapping, indecent assault, committing acts of indecency with a person under 16 and assault causing bodily harm.
His victim was a 16-year-old youth who approached Smallbon’s Sydney house collecting for the Arthritis Foundation.
Smallbon was held in custody for 10 weeks for his attack on the charity collector before being released on bail.
Thirteen days later he attacked a 14-year-old boy, kidnapping, sexually assaulting and choking him in a prolonged attack.
Smallbon was sentenced to seven years and nine months with a non-parole period of four years.
When he was deported in August 2006, Christchurch police began monitoring the criminal - concerned he would strike again.
But given he was a free man, there was little more action they could take.
Johnathon Andrew Smallbon. Photo / Christchurch Star
Smallbon became eligible for parole in 2015. He remains in prison.
To date, he has had little direct engagement with the Parole Board, waiving his right to appear before it in 2019 and 2022 and saying he felt at risk to others and did not want to be released.
His most recent appearance was in September 2024. Again, he did not appear.
The board report revealed Smallbon, after many years behind bars, had made little, if any progress.
2006: The ‘Dungeon Man’
In 2006 Leask began telling the story of Jeffrey Richard Barker - a Christchurch importer of tools, solar heating goods and fetish supplies.
Barker, then 52, owned two houses in Christchurch - he lived in one and converted the other for bondage and discipline
Rooms included a dungeon with a rack for tying people up; a medical room with a surgeon’s table and dental chair; and a suspension room. Other rooms were in the process of being converted.
What landed Barker in court was not his predilection for kink - it was his practice of scarification - cutting patterns into a person’s skin.
In 2006 Barker was convicted at the end of a judge-alone trial of cutting and scarring two teenage girls who took part in sessions in his dungeon room.
A decade earlier, it had been a different story when he was accused of sex offences against a 15-year-old girl.
In 1996, Barker was sentenced to 21 months in prison for performing indecent acts and indecently assaulting the girl.
At his sentencing, Judge David Holderness said Barker had manipulated the victim, who was at a vulnerable stage in her adolescence, and taken advantage of her problems.
In December 2017, Barker was found dead in a Lyttelton carpark, his body wrapped in about six metres of heavy metal chain - weighing about 17kg - and secured with padlocks.
The Christchurch house Jeffrey Richard Barker had converted into a bondage and discipline facility. Photo / NZME
A post-mortem examination confirmed Barker had died of a massive pulmonary embolism that resulted from deep vein thrombosis in both legs.
It appeared that Barker had gone to Lyttelton to commit suicide - but the embolism killed him first.
The Crown case was that she got a thrill from taking the kids to the emergency room.
She claimed the girl had seizures and ataxia, whereby a person loses control of their limbs.
The woman even gave her daughter an overdose of medicine to make it look like she suffered from the condition.
The children were regularly rushed to hospital by their mother. Photo / 123RF
But more seriously, she twice suffocated her infant son and took a video of him struggling to breathe, before feeding him a small button electronics battery.
The woman denied the charges, claiming she never deliberately lied to doctors or hurt her children.
Her lawyer told the court she “suffered from debilitating anxiety” which was why she regularly rushed her children into emergency care.
After listening to two weeks of evidence, the jury found the woman guilty of six charges of ill-treatment or neglect of a child.
Before sentencing she was diagnosed with Munchausen by proxy disorder - a mental illness that causes a person to make up or cause an illness or injury in a person under his or her care, often their children.
The woman was arrested and charged after her abuse was uncovered. Photo / File
Justice Mary Peters said the woman’s offending was rare and “extremely dangerous”.
She said the case was a tragedy for the woman, her children and their wider family.
“I do not consider you would have offended in this way if you were not unwell,” she said.
“Your offending is so far from the norm. You are a good mother in many respects.
“Your actions were dangerous... A child must be able to rely on a parent above anyone else to love and care for them.”
Justice Peters sentenced the woman to 7 years and 1 month in jail - after giving her a substantial reduction on the basis of her mental health.
2018: ‘Despicable and sickening’ neglect
Leask recalled the case of a West Auckland couple jailed for neglecting and abusing their children as “one of the worst cases I have seen in my career, where the kids survived”.
In 2015 the couple was charged with multiple counts of ill-treatment or neglect of a child.
The father also faced four charges of assaulting a child.
The judge who presided over the case said the pair had been keeping the children - aged 9, 3 and 1 - “like caged animals” in “despicable and sickening” conditions.
The court heard that the children were barely fed or washed for almost a year, and forced to stay in their rooms under threat of violence.
They lived in squalor amid piles of food scraps, soiled nappies and general household rubbish, so high that beds and windows were hidden.
Both parents were heavy methamphetamine users and police said the mother was seriously abused by her partner and was too battered by him to look after the children.
After the parents were sentenced to almost four years in prison each, Judge Nevin Dawson allowed Leask to access the court file.
It outlined the full scope of the abuse - which the judge described as abysmal.
From about September 2014, the man started beating the children.
The family’s home life “deteriorated” in the middle of 2015.
“Food scraps, soiled nappies and general household rubbish remained where they lay and no attempt was made to clean the house,” said Judge Dawson.
“The interior of the house became so cluttered that the windows in some of the bedrooms could not be reached and beds could not be seen from the build up of debris and rubbish.
“Despite the availability of some food, cooked or edible food became scarce, especially nutritious food and the children were forced to get their own food within the house and lived largely on white bread and whatever spreads were available.”
Bathing became irregular to the point of being non-existent - with the girl telling authorities she showered about five times a year and her brothers twice a month.
When the children were taken from the couple, they were described as looking “as if they were homeless people who had lived on the street”.
The children were badly neglected and abused.
Photo /123RF
Judge Dawson said they appeared dirty and rough-looking, their clothes were described as rags fit for a rubbish bin.
It took nearly a week to clean the girl’s scalp of “ingrained filth” and the elder of the boys, then 4, was still wearing a nappy and could not speak coherently.
The children were placed in the custody of their grandmother.
Judge Dawson told the parents when he sentenced them: “It is fair to say that the community would not tolerate having caged animals being treated in the manner you treated these children.
“Your treatment of them was despicable and sickening.”
2018: The callous murder of Xi Wang
In December 2018 Xi Wang was murdered in her South Auckland home by her ex-partner.
Ephraim Beazley stabbed the 33-year-old to death at her front door, as she held their toddler in her arms.
Xi died on December 10. Her death was reported in the media for a few days but was completely overshadowed by another case - the disappearance and murder of British tourist Grace Millane, also in Auckland.
As the world watched Grace’s case unfold - Xi’s death went unwatched by many.
In early 2019 Beazley pleaded guilty to murder and the court allowed publication of the brutal facts of the case.
On the day of the murder, Beazley left his home on a Rotorua farm and drove to South Auckland.
Beazley, who had been separated from Xi since before their son was born, parked outside her home just before 10pm.
Xi Wang died at her Flat Bush home on December 10.
He walked up to the house, which was in darkness and knocked on the door several times.
Xi soon answered. It is thought that she did not recognise Beazley at first because he was wearing a cap pulled down over his face and had his head bowed.
She was holding her and Beazley’s two-year-old son when she pulled the door open.
Without speaking, Beazley attacked Xi’s throat with his hunting knife.
She blocked the strike - he stabbed her in the side instead.
He then stabbed Wang several times in both legs before attacking her genitals, causing her to slump forward.
This allowed Beazley to grab her by the back of the head and stab her repeatedly in the neck.
Xi fell to the ground.
She never let go of her little boy.
Beazley realised he had done enough to kill her and ran from the scene, leaving his child lying in his dying mother’s arms.
The killer drove off but soon abandoned his car and made his way to a shopping centre. He called police and told them what he had done and where he was.
Police arrived and arrested him soon after finding the murder weapon tucked into his jacket pocket.
Ephraim Beazley, a Rotorua farm hand, brutally murdered his ex-wife Xi Wang. Photo / Jason Oxenham
When interviewed by police, Beazley said he killed Xi as he’d had enough of life in general - but particularly the state of his relationship with her.
He decided that the best option was to kill her.
Justice Simon Moore revealed Xi had been stabbed 18 times.
“You said that once you got your “rhythm” any hesitation you might have felt, passed,“ he said in court to Beazley.
“You said you intentionally targeted her vital areas, particularly the back of her neck adding that you did not consider your attack to be particularly savage; rather it was very efficient and quick.”
He accepted Beazley did not intend to harm his child - but still put him in serious danger.
“He was in his mother’s arms when she was killed at the hands of his father. That you continued your attack undeterred by this spectacle takes this killing well within the definition of high levels of brutality, depravity and callousness,” he said.
“Callousness does not require prolonged activity but has been described as a ‘hardened state of mind’. It involves a lack of feeling and sensibility; a numbness of the soul is one descriptor. All these labels apply in your case.”
Beazley was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to serve a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
2019: A proclivity for child sex offending
In 2010 Rory Francis was jailed for nine years after being convicted on a raft of charges of sexual offending against two young children over a three year period.
The offending was described in court as “invasive, damaging and, on occasions, extremely degrading”.
While in prison Francis began to identify as Laken Sharon McKay.
In 2017 McKay was released on parole and settled in Auckland.
The family of her victims contacted the Herald, concerned the offender was using a new name and the community would not be aware of her past.
They were also furious that McKay was using social media - posting regular updates about her life, selfies, and “check-ins” at various locations via Facebook.
Laken McKay is a recidivist child sex offender. Photograph/Facebook
McKay responded to a message from Leask, saying she did not want to be part of the story.
Leask only learned of McKay’s recall in April 2019 when she received a letter from prison.
In the letter McKay threatened that if she was released from jail she would return to prostitution and “give as many people HIV and Hepatitis C” as she could.
The lawyer for Corrections said the purpose of the order was to “protect members of the community”.
Laken McKay in the Auckland High Court. Photo / Anna Leask
She said McKay had a “pervasive” pattern of serious sexual offending and there was a “high risk” that she would commit further sex crimes.
“There is ample evidence that Ms McKay has an intense drive or urge to commit a sexual offence. There is no evidence that Ms McKay’s risk has diminished in light of her becoming a woman,” she said.
The lawyer said the court should be satisfied based on the evidence that McKay would - not might - commit further and similar sex offending in future.
Justice Cheryl Gywn said it was imperative the community was protected from her
“I am satisfied Ms McKay’s offending falls into the category of a pervasive pattern... (and she) displays an intense drive to committing a relevant sexual offence.
“Her conduct shows a pattern or proclivity to offend against children in order to meet her own needs.”
McKay’s supervision order does not expire until September 2026.
A Moment in Crime is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released monthly.
Since 2019, A Moment in Crime has produced over 60 episodes and has been downloaded over 1 million times, with listeners in over 170 countries. It was nominated for Best True Crime Podcast at the 2024 Radio and Podcast Awards.
Anna Leask is a Christchurch-based reporter who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 18 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime.
If you have a crime or case you would like to hear more about email anna.leask@nzme.co.nz.
