'He is, from what I've seen, the biggest male serial rapist anywhere ever': The vile crimes of 'monster' Reynhard Sinaga

The chilling words of a seasoned detective who worked with a police team over years to bring Britain's most prolific serial rapist to justice capture the true enormity of his heinous crimes.

"He is a one off. I've never known anything like this. He is, from what I've seen, the biggest male serial rapist anywhere, ever."

Reynhard Sinaga - a calculating predator who led a double life as a quiet churchgoer before he was captured - was jailed in January 2020 for carrying out 159 sex offences, including 136 rapes of young men.

Evil, narcissist and psychopath were the terms used by police to describe him as he was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years behind bars. Manchester's nightlife was his hunting ground. Innocent men were his prey. Poison and date rape drugs were his tools.

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The crimes of Sinaga - the most prolific rapist in British judicial history - have been thrown back into focus after it was revealed today he was allegedly attacked in prison following an alleged planned hit by inmates.

He is said to have narrowly avoided serious injuries at HMP Wakefield in July before it was stopped by prison guards. Reports today pointed to Sinaga being 'in danger' and a 'clear target' for inmates. A man has been charged by police with causing him grievous bodily harm.

Sinaga, now 41, came to Manchester in 2007 as a student from Indonesia. From his city centre flat, he prowled the streets looking for his victims.

Sinaga, who denied his crimes at trial, poisoned and attacked scores of men on nights out in the city over a two-and-a-half year period - before being dramatically caught and brought to justice.

A brave teenager who woke up on the bathroom floor of Sinaga's flat - with no knowledge of what had happened - first alerted police, the beginning of a painstaking, unprecedented police operation and a long judicial process.

Smartly-dressed Sinaga had offered him help. It was a ploy he would often use - that of a Good Samaritan offering to help lost and confused men in Manchester city centre after nights out.

He would invite them back to his flat at Montana House on Princess Street to call taxis or their friends. But calculating Sinaga's hand of friendship was nothing more than a rapist's ruse. Detectives later admitted they were staggered by what they uncovered.

The young man woke up, disorientated, with Sinaga naked on top of him.

Unlike his other victims, many of whom were drugged to the extent they didn't know a thing and couldn't remember what had happened, he fought back and managed to grab Sinaga's mobile phone in a struggle that ensued.

It was on the phone that police were later to find graphic evidence of the poisoning and rapes of men.

Sinaga's young victim ran from the flat and dialled 999, telling how he had been kept in the flat for most of the night and how he had to hit Sinaga to get him off him and to get away. But crucially, he still had Sinaga's white iPhone 4.

That was in June 2017 - the start of the long path to justice for all Sinaga's victims that only ended with the sentencing judge's comments in 2020.

As the investigation began, police found a black iPhone 6 under PhD student Sinaga's bed. It contained a video showing him raping the teenager who woke up and fought back, putting him in hospital

He was subsequently arrested on suspicion of rape, but detectives at that time had no idea how seriously the case would unravel.

Sinaga's flat was pored over by forensic investigators and police, who found phones, driving licences, student ID cards, watches and a wallet - all belonging to men he has drugged and raped, clubbers he had entrapped then enticed on their way home from city centre venues like Fifth and Factory.

The ID documents, along with photos and videos he had taken while his victims were out cold, together with screengrabs of their Facebook profile images, which he has taken afterwards, were, said police, the keepsakes of a 'trophy rapist'.

The two iPhones contained hundreds of hours of footage showing Sinaga raping and sexually assaulting dozens of snoring, immobile people. Many were never traced. One video showed a man being raped eight times over the course of 15 hours.

Detective Inspector Zed Ali, who led Greater Manchester Police's Operation Island investigation into Sinaga would later say: "I've never come across anyone recording so graphically their offending.

"It's not just the sheer volume, it's the method.

"He is a one off. I've never known anything like this. He is, from what I've seen, the biggest male serial rapist anywhere ever."

In a series of secret crown court trials that followed, prosecutors would argue that victims' drinks were spiked with the illicit drug GHB, or its chemical relative GBL - drugs which are which are easily available on the streets of Manchester and online.

Despite the overwhelming evidence Sinaga collected against himself by filming so many attacks, he continued to profess his innocence.

Sinaga pleaded not guilty to 136 rapes, eight attempted rapes, 13 sexual assaults and two counts of assault by penetration involving 48 identified men, spanning around two-and-a-half years - between January 2015 and June 2017.

He claimed that each victim agreed to consensual sex and agreed to pretend to be fast asleep, to the extent they can be heard snoring for several hours, with each allowing him to film them throughout, before leaving their driving licences and student ID cards behind by accident.

He had already been found guilty of raping dozens of other men in three previous hearings stretching back a year, by the time the final cohort of witnesses gave evidence.

There were four trials in total. He refused to give evidence at two of them.

The jury in the last trial, however, saw through Sinaga’s lies and convicted him unanimously of all the counts he was faced with, just as jurors in the three previous hearings had done.

Based on the video evidence available, police believe the total number of his victims runs to 206.

Judge Suzanne Goddard QC - who presided over all four trials - called Sinaga 'a highly dangerous, cunning and deceitful individual who will never be safe to be released'.

"Such was your manipulative behaviour that some of the victims felt guilty the next day when they awoke in your flat, for having troubled you, a stranger, with providing them with a floor to sleep on for the night, or for being sick in your flat," she told him.

"None of them had the least idea of what had happened to them, such was the effect of the drugs you had given them. This was a campaign of rape which justifies the highest of sentences.

"You are an evil serial sexual predator who has preyed upon young men who, for the most part, came into the city centre wanting nothing more than a good night out with their friends.

"One of your victims described you in his victim personal statement as a monster - the scale and enormity of your offending establishes that is an accurate description. I am unaware of any other case of sexual offending of this scale and of this magnitude."