Reynhard Sinaga
Reynhard Sinaga was found guilty of assaulting 48 men whom he allegedly drugged after taking them back to his apartment from clubs, under the pretext of friendship. Police Handout/BBC

Reynhard Sinaga, a rich Indonesian man who is charged with life imprisonment for 136 rapes and 150 offenses, has earned himself the title of being the most prolific rapist in British legal history. This is the first time that prosecutors have split charges across four separate trials. Here are five things we know about what could be the United Kingdom's most vile predator:

1) The 36-year-old “openly gay” sexual predator moved to Manchester in search of his victims—mostly young male students, to satiate his sexual fantasies, only to film himself assaulting them at his scruffy student flat in Manchester. Sinaga’s friends, however, revealed that the Ph.D. student, whose education was being funded by his tycoon father, boasted about a lavish lifestyle back in Indonesia—a life replete with all materialistic luxuries, a mansion in Jakarta along with drivers and maids at his beck and call.

2) Sinaga, who was known as Rey, came to the UK in 2007, when he enrolled for a master’s in Manchester University. On the completion of the course, Sinaga went on to sign up for another course in the same institution—a master’s degree in sociology. Soon after, he enrolled for a Ph.D. in Geography at Leeds University and made regular visits to the campus for supervisions on his thesis titled, “Sexuality and everyday transnationalism. South Asian gay and bisexual men in Manchester”. His first arrest in 2017 led to his suspension from the Leeds University and was expelled after his first trial in 2018.

3) The devout Christian, who was brought up a Roman Catholic, was religious and often paid visits to St John's and St Chrysostom's, a liberal Anglican church in Rusholme, around a mile from his flat. He often changed his appearance and colored his hair back to its natural tone while visiting his parents. His family found him, “odd” and often attempted to find him a girl and get him to settle.

4) Sinaga is said to have etched a plan to satiate his horrific sexual fantasies, and would patiently wait for men leaving nightclubs and bars before luring them to his flat in Montana House, Princess Street with an offer to have a drink. He often sedated vulnerable young men with GHB (gammahydroxybutyrate) is a class C drug, also known as a party drug. Anyone found in possession of the drug faces a jail term of up to two years.

5) At a court in Manchester, a judge maintained that Sinaga must serve at least 30 years in prison for 159 offenses committed between January 2015 and May 2017. During a further probe, cops unearthed disgusting graphic content on Sinaga’s digital devices –equivalent to 250 DVDs or 300,000 photos - depicting sexual assaults on Sinaga's digital devices. Sinaga however, argued that the victims were acting out sexual fantasies and it was purely consensual.

Given the current scenario, Police believe that there could be many more closet victims who might have not spoken up as yet. Sinaga, who did not seem to suffer an iota of remorse during the trials, and once also appeared to mock the prosecutor for his views on sex.

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