Who is Reynhard Sinaga ?
Reynhard Tambos Maruli Tua Sinaga, born on the 19th of February 1983. He is an Indonesian serial rapist who was convicted of 159 sex offences, including 136 rapes of young men committed in Manchester, England, between 2015 and 2017, where he lived as a student.
He was found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting 48 men during this period, 44 of whom he raped, some repeatedly, although the 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 the Court of Appeal.
The Crown Prosecution Service described Sinaga as being the most prolific rapist in British legal history.
Sinaga is believed by police to have raped or assaulted at least 206 men since 2005, two years before his arrival in the UK.
In Manchester, he waited for potential victims outside nightclubs, pubs and similar venues in the early hours.
He then offered them a stay at his flat, subsequently drugging and raping his victims. After some of the assaults, he boasted about his actions on WhatsApp.
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Reynhard Sinaga background
Sinaga was born in 1983 in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia, and grew up in Depok. After completing a degree in Architecture at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Indonesia in Depok in 2006, he moved to the UK on a student visa and began to study in August 2007 at Manchester University, where he completed a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Planning in 2009 and an Master of Arts (MA) in Sociology in 2011.
While in England Sinaga attended St Chrysostom’s Church, a liberal congregation of the Church of England, and the church provided Sinaga with a character reference for his trial. The presiding judge, Suzanne Gooddard, 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.”
The St Chrysostom’s Church later distanced itself from Sinaga after his conviction.
Remaining in Manchester, he began to study for a Leeds University Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in August 2012 on human geography, which he did not complete.
His thesis, entitled “Sexuality 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, and was working on his thesis at the time of his arrest.
He was financially supported by his father, a banker who moved into the palm oil sector. Sinaga’s 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 a gay man, living not far from Manchester’s gay village, and reportedly had many boyfriends.
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