Reynhard Sinaga

Reynhard "Rey" Tambos Maruli Tua Sinaga (born 19 February 1983) is an Indonesian serial rapist. He was convicted of 159 sex offences, including 136 rapes of young men, committed in Manchester, England, between 2015 and 2017, where he was living as a student. Sinaga was found guilty of drugging and sexually 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 the Court of Appeal. The Crown Prosecution Service described Sinaga as being the most prolific rapist in British legal history. He then offered his victims a stay at his flat, subsequently drugging and raping them. After some of the assaults, Sinaga boasted about his actions on WhatsApp.

Since his trial, Sinaga has been imprisoned at HM Prison Wakefield, although talks over his repatriation to Indonesia began in 2025.

Background Reynhard Sinaga was born on 19 February 1983 in the Indonesian city of Jambi and grew up in Depok, West Java. Growing up in an affluent conservative Christian family, Sinaga is ethnically from the Batak people. he moved to the UK on a student visa and began to study in August 2007 at the University of Manchester, where he completed an MSc in urban planning in 2009 and an MA in sociology in 2011. He was financially supported by his father, a banker who moved into the palm oil sector. Many of his victims were traceable because Sinaga kept their phones, watches, ID cards, etc.,

Offences and legal proceedings 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. He claimed that the encounters were consensual, a claim found to be false as victims were heard snoring in the videos. 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." In the first two trials, he was given 88 concurrent life sentences with a minimum 30-year term before being considered for parole. Sinaga was originally held at HMP Strangeways and reported as refusing to cooperate with investigators.

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. 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."

Aftermath Sinaga's father, Saibun Sinaga , in an interview with BBC 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."

Sinaga's mother, Normawati Silaen, told The 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."

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. 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.

The publicity of his crimes brought attention to the Sinaga clan and surname, especially due to the practice of formally referring to someone by their surname in Anglophone countries. Members of the clan distanced themselves from him and denounced his actions as "[bringing] shame to the clan". In February 2025 Indonesia began talks with the UK to repatriate him. Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Indonesia’s senior minister for law and human rights affairs said that talks with the British government "were at an early stage."