The inscription on the memorial bench opposite the bus stop where the 18-year-old woman was grabbed by her killer is heartfelt and devastating: “In loving memory of Bobbi-Anne McLeod,” it says. “Shine Brightly Our Angel.”
The teenager’s relatives have left a heart, a bear and a butterfly next to the bench with messages of love and loss. A magnolia tree with deep purple flowers has been planted in McLeod’s memory on the verge and friends have scattered roses in the grass.
Five months after McLeod was snatched off this Plymouth street by Cody Ackland, a stranger to her, emotions are still raw. There is not only sadness but anger and confusion. Many girls and young women remain wary of walking around after dark; activists continue to campaign to make the city safer; people are still waiting for an explanation for this explosion of violence.
McLeod was on her way to see her boyfriend on 20 November, a damp Saturday evening. Just before 6pm, she walked the few hundred yards from her family’s terrace house in the suburb of Leigham to the Sheepstor Road bus stop, planning to catch the No 50 into the city.
A neighbour noticed her because she was dressed distinctively in ripped jeans with tights underneath and he was worried that someone so young looking was out and about alone. Though she was 18, McLeod was less than 5ft tall and could have been mistaken for a girl of 15.
Shortly after the neighbour saw her, 24-year-old Ackland pulled up and bundled McLeod into his vehicle, her headphones and tobacco falling to the pavement. He carried out a savage attack, striking her repeatedly and over a prolonged period with a blunt instrument. He is believed to have attacked her at the bus stop and then at other locations.
Ackland then drove to Bovisand Beach, a popular party spot for young Plymothians. In May last year – six months before the attack – Ackland posted a picture of a roaring driftwood fire on the beach with the caption: “Capture them moments.” He hid McLeod’s body in woods near the beach that are popular with fly-tippers and made his escape.
The alarm was raised when McLeod did not reach her destination, her family deeply worried because it was so out of character for her to vanish.
Local people joined the police to search. Her older brother, Lee, was sure she had been kidnapped, pleading: “I’m begging everyone single person in Plymouth help me search everywhere, search everything. Someone has my sister.”
Police were mystified. The abduction of an adult, albeit a young and small one, off a street at teatime is unusual. They searched woods and fields and began to interview known sex offenders in the area.
On Tuesday 23 November – three days after McLeod vanished – Ackland walked into a police station and gave himself up. He told officers where her body was and began to reveal his actions.
Detectives were shocked at the ferocity of the attack and the sort of person in front of them. Ackland seemed an ordinary young man from a respectable family with a good circle of friends and a talent for music. Very unusually for a stranger killer, he had no history of violence. He told officers what he had done – but gave no coherent reason why.
Ackland was born in June 1997 in Germany, where his father, David, a soldier, was posted. His parents split up when he was a child and at the time of the killing he lived with his mother, Helen, in the Southway area of the city, about two and half miles from McLeod’s home.
As a boy, Ackland attended Tor Bridge high school – as McLeod did – but the six-year age gap means they almost certainly did not know each other there. After school, Ackland did various jobs but music was his passion, and he became the lead guitarist and songwriter for Plymouth indie band Rakuda.
As police tried to understand what had happened, the tributes poured in for McLeod. Lee McLeod posted a picture on Facebook of himself and his sister as children and wrote: “I love you. You didn’t deserve this. Such a beautiful and talented girl. Now go rest easy.” The teenager’s mother, Donna McLeod, said she would never be forgotten.
When Ackland appeared at Plymouth crown court in January amid tight security, dozens of relatives, friends and supporters of the McLeod family attended, some with placards reading: “Justice for Bobbi-Anne”, “She was only 18” and “End Violence Against Women”.
It emerged that Ackland was not denying what he had done but seeking to argue that he was suffering an “abnormality of the mind” at the time of the attack. Psychiatrists examined him in prison but found no mental illness that would allow this defence in court. Friends have said that as a boy he had contact with children’s mental health services but is not thought to have had known psychiatric problems as an adult.
On Tuesday Ackland appeared again in court to plead guilty to murder. He is due to be sentenced in May, when the full facts of his crime will be set out. And – perhaps – some explanation given.
