Reynhard Sinaga | |
|---|---|
 Sinaga's police mugshot, 2020 | |
| Born | Reynhard Tambos Maruli Tua Sinaga (1983-02-19)19 February 1983 (age 42) Jambi City,Jambi, Indonesia |
| Alma mater | University of Indonesia (BArch) University of Manchester (MSc,MA) University of Leeds |
| Convictions | Rape,sexual assault, attempted rape and assault by penetration of 48 men[1] |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment (minimum term 40 years) |
| Details | |
| Victims | 136–206+[2] |
Span of crimes | 2015–2017 |
| Imprisoned at | HM Prison Wakefield |
Reynhard "Rey" Tambos Maruli Tua Sinaga[note 1] (born 19 February 1983)[5] is anIndonesianserial rapist who was convicted of 159sex offences, including 136rapes of young men, committed inManchester, England, between 2015 and 2017, where he was living as a student. Sinaga was found guilty ofdrugging andsexually assaulting 48 men during this period, 44 of whom he raped, some repeatedly, although police believe he was offending for years beforehand. Sinaga was prosecuted in four trials between 2018 and 2020 and was given concurrent life sentences with a minimum term of 30 years, raised to 40 years in December 2020 by theCourt of Appeal.[6][7][8] TheCrown Prosecution Service described Sinaga as being the most prolific rapist in British legal history.[7]
Sinaga is believed by police to have raped or assaulted at least 206 men since 2015,[2] which includes the two years before his arrival in the UK.[9] In Manchester, he waited for potential victims outside nightclubs, pubs and similar venues in the early hours.[9][10][11] He then offered his victims a stay at his flat, subsequently drugging and raping them.[12] After some of the assaults, Sinaga boasted about his actions onWhatsApp.[13]
Reynhard Sinaga was born on 19 February 1983 in the Indonesian city ofJambi and grew up inDepok,West Java.[14][15] Growing up in an affluent conservativeCatholic family, Sinaga is ethnically from theBatak people.[16] After completing adegree in Architecture at the Faculty of Engineering of theUniversity of Indonesia in Depok in 2006,[17] he moved to the UK on astudent visa and began to study in August 2007 at theUniversity of Manchester, where he completed anMSc in urban planning in 2009 and anMA in sociology in 2011.[6]
Remaining in Manchester, Sinaga began to study for aPhD at theUniversity of Leeds in 2012, which he did not complete. Histhesis, entitledSexuality and everyday transnationalism among South Asian gay and bisexual men in Manchester, was submitted in August 2016 and was assessed as a "fail", but he was permitted to amend and resubmit it.[14] Sinaga was rewriting his thesis at the time of his arrest.[18] He was financially supported by his father, a banker who moved into thepalm oil sector.[17] His mother came to the first pre-trial hearing but was not present for any of the four trials. While in Manchester, Sinaga lived openly as agay man, living not far fromManchester's gay village, and reportedly had many boyfriends.[11]
Sinaga lived in a flat incentral Manchester which acted as a base for his assaults. He would wait for men leaving nightclubs and bars before leading them to hisflat, often offering them somewhere to have a drink or call a taxi. Giving them a drugged drink, believed to have been spiked withGHB, Sinaga would then assault the victims while they were unconscious and video the attack with a mobile phone.[7] He rarely usedcondoms when penetrating his victims; despite this, he was found negative forsexually transmitted infections upon his arrest.[13]
At the time his sentence was announced in January 2020, almost all of Sinaga's victims were known to have beenheterosexual young men, with three exceptions.[11] He saw "turning" heterosexual men as a sport. Of one victim in January 2015, who had argued with his girlfriend in the Factory nightclub near Sinaga's home, he told aWhatsApp group: "SuperRey saves straight boys from their monstrous girlfriend."[14]
In June 2017, his last victim, an 18-year-old amateurrugby union player, regained consciousness during the rape, fought off his attacker, and reported the incident to the police.[11] Sinaga was badly beaten and hospitalised, while police initially arrested his victim on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.[9] Subsequent examination of Sinaga'siPhone by the police led to the discovery of more than 3terabytes of digital video evidence of his assaults and rapes.[9][19] Many of his victims were traceable because Sinaga kept their phones, watches, ID cards, etc.,[7] and he had used social media to contact his unknowing victims online.[11] Some victims unwittingly accepted his friend requests onFacebook.[9] Although the earliest case to be tried in courts stems from 2015, police believe Sinaga began the attacks in 2005, two years before he arrived in the UK.[20]
Sinaga's earliest established offence occurred on New Year's Day, 2015. The man was heterosexual, like the majority of Sinaga's victims, and could remember nothing when he awoke the next day in his abuser's flat covered in vomit.[13] Because of the false concern from Sinaga, he (like many others) apologised for imposing on his host before leaving; he had been raped twice.[6]
Sinaga pleaded 'not guilty' to all charges made against him, resulting in his victims having to endure relating evidence in court, as well as the videos being shown to the jurors and others present at the trials.[6] In his defence, he claimed to have been playing sex games, with the other man playing dead to fulfill his fantasies.[21] He claimed that the encounters were consensual, a claim found to be false as victims were heard snoring in the videos.[12]
Sinaga attendedSt Chrysostom's Church, a liberal congregation of theChurch of England, and the church provided Sinaga with a character reference for his trial.[22][23] The presiding judge,Suzanne Goddard, remarked during the sentencing of the second trial that "It is almost beyond belief that someone who could profess some Christian faith could at the same time have been committing such wicked and evil crimes."[14] The St Chrysostom's Church later distanced itself from Sinaga after his conviction.[23]
The four trials took place as follows:[5]
• 1 June – 10 July 2018 (re : 13 victims)
• 1 April – 7 May 2019 (re : 12 victims)
• 16 September – 4 October 2019 (re : 10 victims)
• December 2019 (re : 13 victims)
The four trials encompass 48 named victims out of at least 206 Sinaga is believed to have raped while they were unconscious.[12] Police have been unable to trace 70 of his victims.[7]
Sinaga was convicted of 136 counts of rape, 14 counts of sexual assault, eight counts of attempted rape, and one count of assault by penetration.[7][12] His defence barrister said that he could offer no mitigation.[24] In the first two trials, he was given 88 concurrent life sentences with a minimum 30-year term before being considered for parole.[9] This was raised to 40 years by theCourt of Appeal on 11 December 2020.[8]Reporting restrictions were in place until the conclusion of his last trial, after which his crimes were made public for the first time.[7] Detectives subsequently set up a hotline with the expectation that dozens of new victims could come forward.[25] Sinaga was originally held atHMP Strangeways and reported as refusing to cooperate with investigators.[9] He was moved toHM Prison Wakefield in April 2020, several months after his final trial.[26]
On 16 January 2020, Sinaga's case was referred to the Court of Appeal for being too lenient.Geoffrey Cox was reported as saying a "whole life order" should be considered for Sinaga, meaning he would never be eligible for parole.[27][28] While a whole life order has never been imposed for crimes other than murder, Judge Suzanne Goddard QC considered this option when sentencing Sinaga and said that he should never be released. In her summing up, Goddard commented: "In my judgment, you are a highly dangerous, cunning, and deceitful individual who will never be safe to be released, but that is a matter for the Parole Board."[9][24] Sinaga’s earliest date of eligibility for aparole boardhearing is 2060, when he will be 77 years of age.[29]
Sinaga's father, Saibun Sinaga, in an interview withBBC Indonesia, expressed his opinion a day after the sentencing, where he was quoted as saying that "we accept the verdict. His punishment fits his crimes. I don't want to discuss the case any further."[16]
Sinaga's mother, Normawati Silaen, toldThe Sunday Times in 2020 that when she visited him in hospital in 2017 she had "wondered if [Sinaga's final victim] had made up the story". She stated that she was not aware that he was gay: "We are a good Christian family who do not believe in homosexuality. He is my baby."[30][31]
The charity Safeline reported a record increase in calls to its hotline for male sexual abuse survivors in the aftermath of the case. Duncan Craig, founder of Survivors Manchester, the charity supporting several of Sinaga’s victims, stated that it had started a national conversation regarding men opening up about sexual abuse.[25]
After Sinaga's conviction, the mayor of his hometown ofDepok,Mohammad Idris, announced that he planned to order raids on the localLGBT community.[32][33] The announcement was swiftly condemned by human rights activists saying that conservatives in Indonesia were using Sinaga as an excuse to target the gay community in the country.[34]
While incarcerated at HM Prison Wakefield for his life sentence, Sinaga was allegedly attacked by another inmate, Jack McRae, on 4 July 2023.[35]
While surnames or 'inherited names' are not legally recognised[...]