Reynhard Sinaga, a year-old postgraduate student, had made this his home for more than seven years, living in a rented flat just a few moments' walk from Factory Nightclub. Sinaga, originally from Indonesia, was a perpetual student. He already had four degrees and was studying for a doctorate.
By night he was a serial sex offender. He has been found guilty of drugging, raping and sexually assaulting 48 men, but police believe they are among at least victims. They are able to be so precise about these numbers because Sinaga filmed his attacks and collected what detectives call "trophies" - items or information stolen from his victims.
Sinaga typically approached his victims in the street. The rapist operated in a small area surrounding his flat. His targets were men mostly in their late teens or early 20s who had been out drinking, often in the nearby nightclubs. Many were too drunk to remember their conversation with Sinaga, but for those who did there was no indication of a sexual motive.
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Sinaga used various pretexts to entice each to his flat. BBC Action Line has support and more information on emotional distress. Greater Manchester Police said anyone who believes they might have been attacked by Sinaga can report information online or call its police line on from inside the UK or from abroad.
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The force said anyone in need of support from specialist agencies could call from within the UK or from abroad. Sinaga presented himself as a flamboyant, churchgoing academic who used the nickname "posh spice". A thin man of slight build and short stature, physically he appeared unthreatening.
Several victims recall him smiling a lot.
It was this apparent harmlessness that enabled Sinaga to pose as a "good Samaritan", coaxing men he approached back to the flat. We know about the benign impression Sinaga created because dozens of victims gave testimony to police, with 48 of them appearing in court over the course of four trials. Of the victims who went to court, the vast majority were heterosexual. Ian Rushton, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said he thought Sinaga took "a particular pleasure in preying on heterosexual men".
Most of his victims were living in Manchester at the time and, in all, 26 were students when they were attacked.
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One was waiting for his girlfriend outside Fifth Avenue nightclub - since renamed Fifth Manchester - when he was approached by a "small Asian guy" who seemed harmless. The man was invited back to Sinaga's flat to wait for his girlfriend, but recalled nothing further after being given a shot of clear liquid to drink. Another man described being "approached by a young Asian gentleman". He said he had a "vague recollection of explaining that my phone was dead and that I was trying to get a taxi but the taxis were passing me". He added: "I think I can recall a conversation along the lines of, 'Would you like to come inside and charge your phone and have a quick chat,'" he told the court.
To him, Sinaga "didn't seem like an imposing character" and during their conversations in the apartment, he appeared to be "an honest, motivated person" with an interest in academic research. The man told the court that soon after being offered a drink, he couldn't remember "a single thing until the next morning". Another victim remembered his friends putting him in a cab outside a club. His next recollection was waking up in a strange apartment.
When he asked Sinaga what had happened, he described providing care and shelter after finding him lying in the street. One victim, a teenage university student, managed to get Sinaga's mobile number as a precaution after waking up in the flat, and then having concerns that something might have been stolen from him. When he rang to ask for more information about what happened, Sinaga described himself as a "good Samaritan" who had found him unconscious on the pavement.
Another man remembered waking up on the floor, covered in a blanket, before thanking the flat's occupier for letting him stay over.
He suspected nothing, even though the person "refused to give me personal details" in order to assist with an insurance claim for a lost mobile phone. The phone, like many others stolen from their owners, was later recovered from Sinaga's home by police. Some victims felt incredibly unwell after regaining consciousness, sometimes naked and covered in vomit.
Unknown to them at the time, Sinaga had given his victims a drug - almost certainly GHB - which rendered them unconscious before he assaulted them. Another man, who was told he could sleep on the floor, recalled waking twice during the night, on one occasion to be sick. He remembered that on one of the occasions he was unable to move his arms and could feel himself being penetrated, before passing out again.
In the morning, he briefly spoke with Sinaga before leaving. He did not report what happened to police, until being approached by them. Police found more than of the men from clues in Sinaga's flat. But the identities of 70 men have not been established and police are now appealing for anyone who believes they may been abused by Sinaga to come forward. One of four children, Sinaga comes from a wealthy Indonesian family who live in Depok, a city within the Jakarta metropolitan area. His father is a banker and also a prominent businessman in the palm oil sector.
The Guardian - Wikipedia
After obtaining a degree in architecture at the University of Indonesia in Depok, he moved to the UK in to study urban planning at the University of Manchester. He went on to gain three degrees there before embarking on a doctorate in human geography at the University of Leeds - travelling there from Manchester when required. His family wealth meant that he rarely worked, although he claims to have had stints in employment in hospitality at both Manchester football clubs and in a clothes shop.
Manchester United have since said they have no record of him working at the club. He worked for a period at a bar in the city's Gay Village, the area where he spent much of his time socialising. He was also a regular at a local church. After originally living in student accommodation, Sinaga moved to a rented flat in Montana House on Princess Street in While his convictions cover a period of two and a half years, police believe his offences predate But they say they may never know the true extent of his crimes. Sinaga was offending with abandon, sometimes night after night.
In footage recovered from CCTV cameras covering his block of flats, he is seen leaving one evening only to return with a man 60 seconds later.
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A teenager, who left The Factory nightclub to get some fresh air after becoming separated from friends, agreed to go to Sinaga's flat after it was suggested he could try to contact them from there. The man recalled nothing further until waking several hours later being sexually attacked by Sinaga. He immediately pushed Sinaga away, who responded by screaming "intruder" and "help", before repeatedly biting the teenager. The man hit Sinaga several times, escaped from the flat, and then called police, who arrived to a chaotic scene.
Sinaga, who was discovered semi-conscious with serious injuries, was at first viewed sympathetically, and the teenager was arrested for assault. But Sinaga's behaviour in hospital began to arouse suspicion. He kept asking officers to have a mobile phone brought to him from his flat. Police asked him to confirm the pin number before they would hand it over.
However Sinaga gave a series of false numbers, then tried to grab the phone after providing the correct one. The officer became so suspicious that he seized the phone as potential evidence and, when it was checked, a video recording was found of Sinaga raping the arrested teenager. It was the start of what the officer overseeing the investigation, Assistant Chief Constable Mabs Hussain, calls "an absolutely unprecedented case". Between them, the two phones had been used to capture about videos of Sinaga raping or sexually assaulting unconscious men.
In some of the films, Sinaga is seen to forcibly hold men down who, though unconscious, were visibly distressed or made attempts to push him away. In others, victims are seen to vomit while being attacked. To find the men, detectives used both the films and "trophies" collected by Sinaga - phones, watches, ID cards from their wallets, images that Sinaga had downloaded from their social media profiles, searches about them he conducted online.
Reynhard Sinaga: How the Manchester rapist found his victims
When they lacked identifying information, investigators tried facial recognition technology, approached local universities, and asked other police forces around the UK if they knew any of the men. Sharif Mowlabocus' work Gaydar Culture shows us the transformative impact of the Internet upon a very particular minority culture, and in doing so teaches us a great deal, not only about that culture, but about the Internet itself.
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