Reynhard Sinaga is a 'one-off' who exploited the city's vibrant student culture to find victims, a detective has told the M.E.N.
However officers believe his offending may stretch back much further than the two-and-a-half years covered by the charge sheet which has seen him jailed for life for attacks against 48 men.
In interviews giving an unprecedented insight into the case, Greater Manchester Police reveal they believe the offending could stretch back well over ten years.
Officers found images relating to potential victims which date back not just to 2007 - when Sinaga first arrived in Manchester - but to 2005.
Once he came to the city, officers believe, he used the friendliness of the city's nightlife to escalate his offending against young men.
Officers say that the identified victims acted no differently from many young men who have visited Manchester city centre for a night out before or since.
Reynhard Sinaga: The Manchester student who raped 'hundreds of men' in city centre flat
“This is the Manchester student culture,” Detective Constable Dot Orr told the M.E.N.
“They go to houses, they have pre drinks and get drunk as cheaply as possible.
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"You then go on a night out and they will stay in any student flat.
“How many friends do you make at university who are not friends?
“In Freshers week when they’re trying to make friends, to bump into someone like him, it is an absolute Manchester culture.
"It’s not unusual.
“These lads haven’t behaved any differently than most of that age range in Manchester at that time.”
Detective Inspector Zed Ali adds: “Manchester is a welcoming place.
"It’s bright, so many businesses are open that time of night.
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"You’re not talking about a dark secluded alleyway where they were being picked upon.”
“And Manchester folk are naturally friendly folk,” DC Orr adds.
“They’ll get into a conversation with anybody, it’s not unusual.
"It’s him that’s the odd one, not them doing anything particularly odd.
“At the end of the day he is a predator.
“These lads are only vulnerable because of the amount of drink they’ve had, but he had a way of noticing vulnerability which is how most rapes happen.
“He has a perception of their vulnerability and he preys on them.
"He goes out looking for them and he knows who to pick - the ones that are on their own.
"He knows how drunk they need to be, how they’re behaving on the street and how friendly they need to be.
"So it’s him, it’s not them.”
Detectives hope this case will break the stigma surrounding male rape and encourage anyone who has been affected by sexual assault to come forward, insisting that they will pursue prosecution.
“I don’t think most lads that age would even consider that they could be a victim of a sexual offence because it’s so rare,” DC Orr says.
“One said: ‘I didn’t report it in case I was wrong because I can’t falsely accuse someone of something so serious’.
“That’s how they think because they’re all nice lads - don’t be ridiculous, that’s a ridiculous thought, I’m going to get it out of my head’.
“Well it wasn’t ridiculous, it was true but their mind won’t let them go there.”
Detectives insist that Manchester is as safe as ever for young people to enjoy a night out.
But they hope men will now take safety messages about sexual violence as seriously as those about personal robbery.
“I would like to think the one positive that will come out of this investigation will be that young men start thinking about the safety messages we send out,” Det Insp Ali says.
“Make sure you don’t get separated from your friends and go home together – I hope they will take that advice that just because they’re men they’re not safe.”
How the monster was stopped
Reynhard Sinaga got away with it for so long because each of his young male victims were completely oblivious to the fact they had been sexually abused.
They were drugged - most likely with GHB or GBL - a drug which can cause memory loss and sedation to the point of coma.
But it was Sinaga’s penchant for filming his vile sex crimes, often in graphic close up, that led to his eventual downfall.
He recorded everything on two iPhones - a black iPhone6 and a white iPhone4.
These devices contained enough evidence to put Sinaga behind bars for decades.
But it was only thanks to the actions of one brave teenager that the phones ever ended up in the hands of police.
The first crumbs of evidence in the investigation came to light in April 2017, when a man reported a stranger rape.
This man, then 33, had been out at Retro Bar in the city centre to watch a band with friends.
He was drunk and doesn’t remember leaving the bar, but woke up in Sinaga’s apartment feeling sick, disorientated and as though he had been drugged.
He believed he was in a hotel room and found that Sinaga was stroking his hair.
The rapist told him how nice he was and hugged him before saying: “Stay, relax, go with it”.
Confused, the victim stumbled out of the flat and caught an Uber home in the early hours.
The following day, the victim spoke to friends about the events of that night and decided to refer himself to St Mary’s sexual assault referral centre to be examined.
Medics found traces of Sinaga’s semen in the gusset of the victim’s boxer shorts.
But at that point Sinaga was completely unknown to police – he had never been arrested.
So even though the victim reported the rape, the DNA didn’t match with any known offenders on the police database.
Officers put out an appeal for information about a stranger rape, at that point believing the attack had taken place at the Ibis hotel, directly opposite Sinaga’s apartment in Montana House.
Six weeks later, police would be faced with a bizarre situation that led to the uncovering of Britain’s most prolific rapist.
It was on a mild summer’s night in June that a teenager – then aged just 18 - became separated from his friends while on a night out in Manchester.
He stumbles upon Sinaga - a man he describes as friendly and unthreatening - and they immediately start talking about university.
Within 15 minutes Sinaga has convinced the teenager to come upstairs to his flat for a drink.
He remembers being offered an alcoholic drink and then has no memory until he wakes up to find the rapist lying naked across his back.
The teenager – then only 18 – panicked believing he was about to be raped.
He manages to break free and picks up what he believes to be his own mobile phone.
Sinaga fights back, bites the lad’s stomach and yells: “Help, help. Intruder, intruder!” - cries that were heard by his neighbours.
The teenage victim bolts from the flat and makes an emergency 999 call to police to report: “I was out last night and then erm some guy’s took me to his house that I don’t want to take me to, wouldn’t let me leave his house, and he ended up trying to rape me.”
Police arrive at the apartment block within ten minutes and find Sinaga’s victim, who tells officers his fears but also shows concern for Sinaga’s welfare.
When officers go upstairs, they are faced with a bloody scene. Sinaga was found 'semi-unconscious' on his bathroom floor bleeding from the head.
An ambulance is called and Sinaga is stretchered from his flat – an episode captured on CCTV.
“The set of circumstances the officers were faced with (that first day) were a long way from what the actual truth was,” says Detective Constable Dot Orr.
“He’s quite a big lad the first victim. Sinaga is there on the floor. The officers turned up, he’s got a bit of an injury.
"The victim says ‘I think he was trying to rape me’. So to the officer there it looks like they’ve had a bit of a hook up.”
However when Sinaga wakes up in hospital he asks the nurse a bizarre question - “Was I raped?”.
Detectives now know this was a blatant attempt to divert blame away from himself.
“He knew what to do and he was very quick to turn and accuse them of being the one that’s in the wrong,” DC Orr says.
“It has to be quite quick thinking that.”
Meanwhile, Sinaga’s victim is arrested on suspicion of assault and hands over a white iPhone4 – not realising it actually belongs to the rapist.
Hospital-bound Sinaga begs police officers to bring him his phone, and they find a black iPhone under the bed in his flat.
They become suspicious when he gives a number of false PIN codes.
But he eventually gives the correct PIN and the phone opens up on a video of Sinaga raping the victim.
At 3.52pm on June 3, 2017, Sinaga is arrested for on suspicion of a single rape.
Police search his flat and find ID documents and clothing near his bed belonging to different people. They also seize several laptops and hard drives.
Detective Inspector Zed Ali - who led Operation Island, the far-reaching investigation into Sinaga – says at this point officers still didn’t realise the enormity of Sinaga’s offending.
“At this time we had him down as potentially offending against six, seven, eight different people. But we certainly didn’t think that potentially we had a serial rapist.”
When he is well enough to be interviewed by police two days later, he claims the victim agreed to consensual sex and was trying to steal his mobile phone.
“He switched it and kept that pretence up right the way through, right the way through his interview he kept that up,” DI Orr says.
Detectives worked day and night trawling through hours and hours of footage, photographs, music files, university work and messaging chats, equating to 3.29 terabytes, to build a case against Sinaga.
Det Insp Ali says: “At the time I was a DI of the force’s serious sexual offences unit at any one time could be investigating 300 rape crimes.
“Despite being the force specialist it was a shock in terms of the number of rapes and the evidence.
"I’ve never come across anyone recording so graphically their offending. It’s not just the volume it’s the method.”
He doesn't see them as victims
Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Sinaga continues to profess his innocence and denied all charges put to him, instead choosing to run four trials.
“He believes because he’s so attractive and effeminate that men will approach him for sex,” DI Ali explains.
“He believes he’s particularly attractive to bisexual and bicurious men.
"When they get back to his apartment his defence is that they agree to consensual sexual acts.
"He will do anything they want and his own fantasy is that they will role play not moving, pretending to be asleep.
“He claims they’re aware that he’s recorded the sexual act on the basis that he doesn’t share it with anyone.”
In court Sinaga claimed that the complainants were all 'embarrassed' about their sexual encounters with him, which is why they all kept it secret.
“He doesn’t see them as victims,” DI Ali says. “If anything, he’s almost turned it around in terms of saying they’re all bicurious, they’ve had this sexual liaison with him, they regretted it afterwards and because the police broached it, due embarrassment or whatever other reason, they’ve decided to pin false accusations against him and he’s a victim in all this.”
It was a defence branded as 'ludicrous' by a judge and prosecutors.
“To say it’s a weak defence is putting it lightly,” says Det Insp Ali.
“Where his story really falls down is that some of the victims are gay, openly gay as well. So they have no reason to lie about any sexual encounter.
“In the videos they’re clearly not engaging.
"You can clearly hear they’re asleep because they’re snoring. If they are acting, they deserve Oscars.”
So how did police deal with a criminal who refused to accept any wrongdoing and ran four crown court trials?
Despite a wealth of video footage to support the prosecution case, there was a still a piece of the jigsaw missing.
Detectives needed to work out how Sinaga – a petite man - managed to incapacitate his victims so he could carry out the attacks.
They believe Sinaga used the illegal drug GHB or GBL to stupefy his victims and knock them out cold – a theory that has been supported by expert evidence in court.
“A lot say they’ve had hangovers but nothing like this,” DI Ali says.
“Though the first victim we spoke to had samples taken, nothing was found in his system.
"However GHB only remains in the system for six hours.”
Symptoms such as vomiting and a loss of bladder control, which were experienced by many of Sinaga’s victims, also supports the theory that he used GHB to drug them.
DI Ali explains: “At trial we had a victim who can be seen actually awake and aware of his surroundings.
"You can see on camera that Sinaga gives him a shot of what looks like alcohol.
“He takes that and within 15 minutes you can see him on screen losing consciousness.”
Judge Goddard QC told Sinaga she is 'convinced' he used a date rape drug such as GHB to incapacitate his victims.
But most key to the prosecution case was the video footage.
So compelling was that evidence that Iain Simkin, who prosecuted all four trials, told juries they needed very little else to convince them of Sinaga’s criminality.
During his closing speeches he said: “It’s the videos, it’s the videos, it’s the videos, it’s the videos, it’s the videos.”
However compiling this evidence bitesize pieces that a jury could understand was a tougher task.
And working on a case with such a huge amount of graphic evidence presented it’s own difficulties.
A daunting task
The team working to prosecute Sinaga have not been immune to the upsetting nature of the case.
As such, officers have been offered appointments with counsellors, nurses and referrals to occupational health units.
DC Orr – who delayed her retirement this year to see the job through – admits that she found aspects of the investigation emotionally difficult.
“There’s lots of times in my personal life that something will – and I know it’s a bit silly but – within some of the videos there’s a certain pair of footwear and if I see those footwear I instantly see videos.
"You just can’t help it.
“It doesn’t mean to say it affects you in any way that you’re traumatised by it, but there are just little things that will always remind you.”
DI Ali adds: “Our officers have watched hundreds of hours of videos, they’re very graphic and it’s clear these males are being raped.
“Not only are they watching the videos, they also have the unfortunate task of knocking on the door and disclosing to someone that they are the victims of rape and because of the effects of drugs they have no memory.
"It’s an absolutely daunting task.”
It was this element of the investigation that proved particularly difficult.
Officers managed to trace many of Sinaga’s victims because he is a 'trophy rapist'.
He took souvenirs from his victims such as watches, wallets, ID cards and, most commonly, screenshots of Facebook profiles.
Using this information detectives found the victims - who were oblivious to the crimes - and were faced with the terrible task of revealing their suspicions.
“They’re such nice lads, and you’re chatting away and you think ‘the minute I say this next sentence I’m going to end your life as you know it, it’s not going to be the same ever again’,” DC Orr says.
“So you’re getting into a bit of a chat and you don’t want to say the word.
"You’ve got to do it obviously, but you sort of try and have that neutral chat first.
"You think ‘do they really have to know this?’ Because he could have gone through the rest of his life without knowing, but now I’m going to tell you.
“It’s really intrusive. It’s difficult to appease them and give them enough information but you can’t go into any detail. We just say we have evidence of you being raped.
“You want to give them a hug. It’s hard, really really hard.”
When detectives went to interview victims, they were joined by a specialist so they could access support and counselling immediately.
Dept Insp Ali says: “Some of the offences have happened years ago and these men are not aware of it, We’re literally turning their lives upside down.
“There’s even a question of ‘do you tell them if they’ve got no memory?’ Obviously it’s the right thing to do and something we must do but that’s the impact that we’re having on their lives.
“For them to decide that ‘yes’ they want justice, they want to do the right thing, they want to prosecute, is absolutely brave.
"Especially when they know the justices system is not particularly friendly because you are going to be cross examined by the defence, you will be accused of having consensual sex and making false allegations.”
Police say they have no doubt that Sinaga would have carried on raping men had he not been caught.
“He’s offended with impunity for a decade,” Dept Insp Ali says.
“He’s now convinced himself either that he is innocent or that it doesn’t matter because he’s got what he wanted for so long.”
During his first police interview Sinaga was almost friendly with the offices.
“You wouldn’t think he was being arrested for serious offences of multiple rapes,” Dept Insp Ali says..
After this, the rapist refused to comment.
“Before during and after the interviews he’s just been friendly, polite and dare I say at times it’s been like a day out for him from someone who’s come from prison.
Definitely not someone who is looking at a life term in prison.
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“I think he’s enjoyed the process and he’s also got the secondary gratification of power over the victims of making them come to court to give their evidence and listen to what they’ve got to say.
"I believe he’s got further gratification from watching the videos at court again and I also believe that from all of this that he’s a narcissist.
“I genuinely believe that in his head he believes that he’s not done this and it has all been through consent.”
He adds: “I believe he’s a psychopath to the point that he’s convinced himself that what he’s doing is not wrong and he’s lived this double life for ten years.”
Judge Goddard QC said of the police work involved in the case: “The investigation involved 100s of hours of viewing footage of a most unpleasant nature and the painstaking tracing of the victims.
"It is clear that the victims were dealt with in a most sensitive and understanding way.
"In particular DS Philip Steele and DC Dorothy Orr are to be commended for the dedicated professionalism and sensitivity shown throughout their preparation of this case and it’s presentation at court ,in this most difficult of cases."
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