An Indonesian student found guilty described as “the most feared rapist in British legal history” was sentenced to life in prison on Monday for the rape of at least 48 men in Manchester.
Reynhard Sinaga was found guilty of abusing 48 men in his apartment, where he drugged and assaulted them – filming the attacks. Police say there is evidence that Sinaga, 36, managed to threaten at least 190 victims.
The judge ruled that his life sentence should include a minimum of 30 years in prison. Reporting restrictions were lifted at a sentencing hearing at Crown Court in Manchester on Monday, meaning Sinaga could be identified for the first time.
The graduate student was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for the offenses he was convicted of in two previous trials, which occurred in the summer of 2018 and last spring. In four separate trials, the Indonesian national was found guilty of 136 counts of rape, eight counts of attempted rape, 14 counts of sexual assault and one count of assault with penetration, against a total of 48 victims.
At the hearing, Judge Suzanne Goddard QC said Sinaga was “dangerous, deeply disturbed and perverted individual” who would never be safe to be released.
Sinaga stalked his victims in the centre of Manchester, where he looked for intoxicated men and pretended to be a good Samaritan by offering them a place to sleep.
When they were in his apartment, Sinaga drugged them with sedatives – probably Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB ), according to the Prosecutor’s Office – and when they were unconscious, he raped them and recorded the attacks on two mobile phones.
In total, they found 3.29 terabytes of extremely graphic material, equivalent to 250 DVDs; one of the videos shows an eight-hour sexual attack.
Reynhard Sinaga arrived in Britain from his native Indonesia with a student visa in 2007.
He obtained two university degrees, in sociology and planning, from the University of Manchester and at the time of his arrest in 2017 he was studying for his doctorate at the University of Leeds.
His thesis was entitled: “Sexuality and everyday transnationalism. Homosexual and bisexual men from South Asia in Manchester.”
