Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 5: Reynhard or Go Home
53 Plays18 days ago
In this episode, Biccy lays out the case of Reynhard Sinaga, whose crimes took place on his home turf. He looks at how Sinaga was able to operate for years without being caught, how the case finally came to light, and why it stands as one of the most disturbing criminal cases in recent British history.
Content warning: This episode discusses sexual violence.
Recommended
Transcript
Casual Banter and TV Show Discussions
00:00:36
Speaker
Hi, Twin Keys. Welcome back. How are you doing, Q? I'm good. Q is currently looking very cozy and curled up.
00:00:47
Speaker
I don't know. Do we need some banter or should I just get straight into it? Well, do you have any banter? No, I'm drinking a cocktail. I've got some vodka and bit lemon, which is kind of nice. Are you drinking at the minute? No.
00:01:00
Speaker
No, I've just been sober lately, but you know, I go back and forth. I don't have much banter. I mean, what have, Oh, we already talked about the heated rivalry on the last one. I'm also watching. I love LA.
00:01:15
Speaker
which is the Rachel Sennett show, which you're probably not watching. no to be honest, I'm not really watching any shows. so No, I'm watching, that I've been watching the At the Clown show with At the Clown Scar's God. He in it? He is in it, but he doesn't look hot because he's got like the clown makeup on.
00:01:34
Speaker
I think he's hot even in the clown makeup. I want to have sex with him in the clown makeup. Okay. Well, I would definitely not be interested in something like that.
00:01:44
Speaker
But no, I think he's very creepy in the clown makeup, but I do like him a lot. He's a cool guy. i think he's I think he's kind of on a par with like Robert Patton's and I think is like one of the more like interesting actors, I think working in Hollywood.
00:01:59
Speaker
Like I'm always excited to see what he's going to be in there. i agree. Have you seen that thing? He's doing like a new film where he's like, um Oh, I sent you a picture of it where he's got like the mustache and he's like some, it's, I think it's like a real life movie about someone who like kidnaps someone else. I think.
00:02:16
Speaker
ah I tried to watch the one he's like gets stuck in the car, but I got really bored. I don't know this one. He like tries to steal a car and then like the person locks him in and like,
00:02:28
Speaker
Oh, is it got Anthony Hopkins Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I haven't, I haven't watched that yet. It looked kind of like Amazon sloppy, but um yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll give it a go.
Introduction to Raynard Sinaga's Case
00:02:41
Speaker
The crime that I've chosen to talk about, i will warn people in advance, this is quite a dark one. Well, the last and we did was not last one we did wasn't like super dark. so No, that was that was pretty fluffy. So I feel like we're due for like a dark one. But this one's like really dark and it's local to me because it happened in my city.
00:03:01
Speaker
But yeah, so I guess we'll just start. Okay, so I'm going to start off. like I want you to imagine the you're 22 maybe or 23 and you're a straight guy.
00:03:16
Speaker
um maybe you've like recently graduated. You're like doing your first sort of graduate job, um, living in an apartment on your own. Maybe you've got a girlfriend and it's a Sunday. You're a little bit hangover and you get a knock at the door.
00:03:30
Speaker
And you open it and there's two policemen and they're looking very serious. And they're not here to ask you about like speeding or a dispute with your neighbors or to like arrest you for something you said on Facebook.
00:03:43
Speaker
You invite them inside, sit them down. And they start asking you about a night out that you had a couple of years ago. No, you're a young guy. You're probably going out like every weekend. So you you can't really recall in particular a night two years ago.
00:04:02
Speaker
um They all kind of blur into one. So they show you a picture of a guy and ask you whether you've seen this guy before. And maybe he looks sort vaguely familiar. You're not really sure. you sort of look at the picture a couple of times and you're sort of like, I don't know, maybe I've seen him, maybe I haven't.
00:04:18
Speaker
Then they tell you the they found your image on a device that belonged to this guy and that you were drugged with GHB You were unconscious and while you were in that state, you were raped and the entire thing was filmed. Okay. And you're hearing this for the first time with no recollection of this happening. Okay. The most chilling part about this is they tell you that you're one of at least 200 victims and you've been sort of carrying this around with absolutely no idea for two years.
00:05:00
Speaker
So today we are going to be talking about Raynard Sinaga, who is the most prolific rapist in British legal history, I think. And he was operating in Manchester between, we think, between sort of 2015 and 2017. So before we even like dive into the facts of the crime, which are horrific, like,
00:05:25
Speaker
What's your immediate reaction to that like opening scenario, the idea that you could be hiding this complete nightmare that you didn't even know existed? My immediate reaction is that if I truly did not remember being raped, I would prefer not to find out that I had been, I think.
00:05:45
Speaker
um So i would that would probably be my... um I mean, that's my immediate thought, to be honest. um Yeah, that's my immediate thought. Have you heard of this guy before? um Vaguely, I have. a Vaguely, vaguely i I did know that this had happened. I remember also, which I guess maybe I'll get to, but like i just I guess I just find it, if I'm a straight guy who has never had been fucked before, i guess I'm just like, would I wake up and truly not like feel as if that had happened to me? i don't know.
00:06:20
Speaker
we are We are going to get into that a little bit because um i when I was researching it, I kind of had like similar thoughts. um As someone who has been fucked, like, I don't feel, i feel like the next day you um can feel that that has happened, generally speaking. Yeah. When I was initially like researching this, like i was kind of having the,
00:06:42
Speaker
the same sort of thoughts. Like how would you not know that this has happened to you? But then I guess like, if you've never like had gay sex with a man before, then you probably don't know what that feels like.
00:06:56
Speaker
um We can talk a little bit more about that when we get into like the crimes and stuff. I could also see a scenario where you're just like, even if you like that thought, like remotely passed your brain, if you have no memory of it, you're just kind of like, I don't want to think about it.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah. I'm going to send you like some pictures of the guy. so you have like an idea in your head of like what he looks like. Okay. So he's, he's like kind of cute. So a twinky Asian guy.
00:07:20
Speaker
oh my gosh. This is the guy. this is the guy. This little Asian twink raped 200 people. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'm, all right, I'm in. I need to hear how this went down. So, um, Reynald Sanaga, he's an Indonesian national.
Background and Life in Manchester
00:07:38
Speaker
He was 36 years old at the trial. um and he'd been living in the UK like, I think about 10 years. so he He's from Indonesia. He's from like a wealthy Catholic family. His dad is a banker who also owns a palm oil plantation.
00:07:57
Speaker
So he's from like a very, very, very wealthy family in Indonesia. They live in like a big mansion and stuff like this. um And because they're very wealthy, he kind of had...
00:08:09
Speaker
um basically his pick of wherever he wanted to go to university. So he initially went to like a college in Indonesia and then after he'd graduated, he decided that he was going to go and do a degree in America originally.
00:08:25
Speaker
He goes there for a couple of weeks and after a couple of weeks, he decides that he doesn't like it because he's everybody there is sort of partying too much and he doesn't feel like it really fits in. So he moves back to Indonesia and then he kind of sets his sights on the UK as like the place where he wants to go and study.
00:08:45
Speaker
So in 2007, he moves to Manchester. And he enrolls at the University of Manchester. can't remember what his degree was in. I think it was sociology or something like this.
00:08:57
Speaker
No, he did he did two degrees. He does a degree in urban planning and then he does a master's degree in sociology. I don't actually to even know what sociology is. but like it's one of those, I've, I've known people who've done sociology degrees and I've never really thought to ask them what that degree is, but I think it is kind of one those like fluffy sort of social science type degrees for a bit background. Like he, he was a gay guy, obviously, but when he was, when he was living in Indonesia, he wasn't out to his parents or anything like that. They're sort of,
00:09:29
Speaker
very conservative Catholics and it wouldn't be something that he would be able to um explore while he was living in Indonesia. So I think that was part of the reason why he chose Manchester because outside of maybe like Brighton down south, like Manchester is kind of known as like the, like the gay capital of the UK. Like it's got a very vibrant, um,
00:09:52
Speaker
like gay scene. More than London? Yeah, way more than London. Like London, I think probably has more gays by volume purely based on the fact that it's bigger, but like Manchester's like, Manchester's like known as like a gay city. Manchester is where the original Queer as Folk was filmed, right? The British one. Yeah.
00:10:12
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So the... Have you seen that show? I think I have. i Well, I've seen all of the American one. think I did watch a couple episodes of the British one. Yeah. So...
00:10:23
Speaker
The area that that show is set in is also sort of the same area that a lot of the the crimes and stuff that we're going to be talking about take place in. and So it all kind of happens like around the gay village.
00:10:34
Speaker
um So there's an area in Manchester called Canal Street, and it's very pretty. I hate going there because it's full of gays. But like it's um it's by the canal, and that it's like lots of like really nice old buildings. There's like bunting and flags up. I'm going to send you a picture so you can sort of see what it looks like. But it's it's a nice...
00:10:53
Speaker
looking area like and that's where like all of the sort gay night clubs and bars are it is pretty yeah they have like lights string up and there's lots of people sort of partying in the streets and stuff so while he's living in manchester he is living on princess street which is sort of i say one thing i i know i'm interrupting but this twink sort of looks like if george santos like lost a shit ton of weight do you know i don't actually even know what george santos looks like Well, I feel like a lot of our very few listeners will know George yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Of course, he's the big fat queen.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah. He kind of looks like if George Santos just lost like a full 100 pounds, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. But anyway, so he's living like around the corner from the gay village in Manchester. um The gay villages where there are lots of like gay nightclubs there, but there are also a lot of like regular, like straight people nightclubs in the surrounding area. So the streets that kind of offshoot it have got a lot of sort of regular nightclubs as well. He ends up staying in the UK for such a long time because...
00:12:01
Speaker
Once he's finished his master's degree in sociology, he doesn't want to return to Indonesia. He's enjoying living in a city where he can be like out, he's got lots of boyfriends, he's dating, all of this kind of stuff. and He doesn't really want to go back to the the more sort of conservative life that he had in Indonesia. He enrolls in another degree at the University of Leeds, um which Leeds is probably about I don't know, maybe like an hour and a half away on the train.
00:12:33
Speaker
um But he's still living in Manchester. So he's commuting to Leeds to do his degree during the week. um But he stays sort of living in Manchester. And he stays there until, I want to say like, he's still doing that this degree in like 2016, 2017. So around the times that the crimes have been committed. So he's in his 30s.
00:12:53
Speaker
like early thirties, but he's still a student. He's still
First Recorded Crime and Modus Operandi
00:12:56
Speaker
studying. Um, and from like accounts from people, he, he still looks very young for his age. So you wouldn't sort of, you wouldn't immediately be like, think of him as sort of a mature student, even though he is technically sort of older than a lot of his sort of cohort.
00:13:14
Speaker
So I wanted to take you to new year's Eve and in 2015. And this is when the first recorded crime takes place. We don't know specifically the identity of the victim. We don't really know the identity of any of them, to be honest. that They're protected by law, so we don't we don't know who they are. But like but we know like a lot about sort of his kind of methodology and things. So the the the first...
00:13:39
Speaker
victim that he engages with. He meets this guy in a nightclub on New Year's Eve and this guy is pretty drunk. He's at the bar and Raynard sort of offers to buy him a drink.
00:13:53
Speaker
He spikes the drink with GHB and after sort of 10 minutes or so, the guy starts feeling unwell. Now, Raynard, he lives literally two-minute walk away from this nightclub because he's sort of quite at a sort of unassuming, skinny, like friendly, twinkish He offers to like take this guy to his apartment. This guy is straight. He's not a gay guy.
00:14:21
Speaker
Was he in a gay club? No, he was in like a regular nightclub. He accepted a drink from ah a man, I guess. Not that I'm victim. I'm just trying to clarify that. Yeah. I, I, that's not, that wouldn't be that weird. I don't think in the UK, like if you get chatting with somebody in a bar, like even on a friendly level, I think if they buy you a drink, you wouldn't sort of, you wouldn't, you wouldn't assume sexual intent necessarily. No, especially if you're already pretty wasted and you're kind of of not really thinking straight. but yeah But anyway, so he takes this guy to his apartment.
00:14:55
Speaker
The guy eventually starts like feeling unwell. And while he's like sort of unconscious, Raynard like starts taking photos of him on his phone.
00:15:07
Speaker
So he takes like a selfie of the guy like unconscious. He like removes his clothes and he rapes him. um He films this on his phone. And then in the morning when the guy wakes up, he's apparently he wakes up in like a pool of his own vomit on the floor. He just kind of thinks that like he got too drunk or something. And he's like passed out in some guy's house and he he sees like Raynard there just sitting there very calmly and sort of nicely and being friendly. And this guy is very apologetic that he sort of imposed himself on Raynard. like, Oh, I'm so sorry for my behavior last night. All of this stuff. He's kind of embarrassed that he's like thrown up on this floor and he has absolutely no idea that he was like sexually assaulted.
00:15:54
Speaker
Does he like presume, I mean, I guess we're probably not going to get these details, but does he like, remember meeting this guy? Like, does he kind of have a vague memory? Like, oh, I met this guy and this was someone I was drinking with last night. Not really. he he like vaguely remembers being at the bar. Um, but he can't really remember anything else.
00:16:12
Speaker
Cause for me, I guess. i'm I'm not poking holes in the story. I believe 100%. No, no, it's fine. i mean It's very clear from everything you're saying, this man raped this guy. I'm just saying, like for me, if I woke up in a pool of my own vomit and I didn't even remember meeting the person I would be very, very freaked out if I didn't even have even like the slightest memory, like that I had been drinking with that person, you know?
00:16:41
Speaker
i i know you mean, but like, we're kind of looking at it from like the perspective of being gay guys. And also like, you've got to bear in mind, like the majority of the men that we're talking about, they're like pretty big guys. They're not like, um,
00:16:57
Speaker
sort of skinny, like vulnerable looking sort of men that used, they generally sort of quite athletic, like muscular guys. Um, and this Raynard guy, he's like a short, like skinny Asian twink.
00:17:12
Speaker
So like, the The idea that they would feel in any way sort of like threatened by him, i think is they did they just wouldn't. I don't know. Like, i think I think one of the reasons that he was able to get away with this so much is that like, he's like so unassuming and gentle seeming that like, maybe you would wake up in this apartment and you would think like, oh God, I don't remember what happened last night, but you're not going to look at this guy and think that he's like,
00:17:42
Speaker
I don't know. You just wouldn't think that he was a rapist, I guess. but maybe Maybe you're just happy that like this is the dude that you like ended up like passing out on the floor. like Maybe you just think, like oh, this like foreign, calm, like unassuming guy like took pity on me and like I'm not in like a street gutter.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah. And ah based on, I think the the first guy's responses, like he he sort of described it that way. He sort of describes him kind of as like a good Samaritan sort of type. Okay.
00:18:14
Speaker
Okay. And that's that's kind of like ah a recurring theme. Like a lot of these guys sort of view him as like this sort of like good Samaritan. You sort of like taste notice that they were like too drunk or whatever and kind of like taking taking them under their wing to like keep them safe.
00:18:28
Speaker
But anyway, so after this after this first in incident, Raynard like sends a picture of the unconscious guy to a WhatsApp group of his friends. And he's like bragging about...
00:18:41
Speaker
having this like straight guy in his like beds last night. so that the the The friends in this group, they don't know that he's raped this guy, but they they know that he's like taken a straight guy home and he's kind of bragging about that as like a sort of gay guy thing, like, oh, look, I managed to bag a straight guy. And like, I guess, I guess the friends, the the picture he sent must not, must have been something like where he just looks like he, he fell asleep after they had sex. Yeah.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we can't see any of these images, so it's hard to know because like all of this stuff is very, very, um like hush hush, like to protect the anonymity of the victims. But like but yeah, I imagine it was just sort of photo of a guy like sleeping.
00:19:22
Speaker
But based on sort of how easy it was for him to get away with this. And I hate to say it but gay guys wouldn't, but that if someone sent me a picture of a guy sleeping and were like, ha ha, I this straight guy, wouldn't, I mean, to me, I wouldn't in any way assume they had raped someone i would just kind of be like oh no yeah no me neither absolutely not um yeah but based on sort of how how easy it was for him to get away with this he starts doing it more often i mean obviously we know he did it more often he does it like 200 times but like um he he sort of develops like a sort of methodology for doing it so where his apartment building is placed he's in like a ground floor flat
00:20:04
Speaker
um on quite a busy street where there are lots of like nightclubs and he can see from out of his window like the queues and stuff for different clubs and like the outside areas.
00:20:16
Speaker
So what he would do is like at the weekends, like late at night, he'd like be looking out of the window and trying to spot guys who A, like sort of matched his like physical type, which is sort of a masculine, athletic, young guys. These are like mostly...
00:20:34
Speaker
like white guys? We don't really know the ethnicity of the guys. um the The age has varied quite a lot. They vary from, I think like 17 up to like 36.
00:20:45
Speaker
So okay he it seems like he probably has like a physical type. We know that they're athletic, but we don't really know their like ethnicity and things like that. I know that I know one of them was white because I've seen a picture of him. um But yeah, we don't really know. I don't really know if there's like a racial element to it.
00:21:05
Speaker
But he's keeping a lookout out the window at night, like waiting for guys who... seem like they're vulnerable. Maybe they've drank too much. They become separated from their friends.
00:21:17
Speaker
um Maybe they're like waiting for a taxi. And then once he kind of like gets his sights on one of them, he'll go out and like spark up conversation with them. Maybe he'll say like, and oh, do you want to come and wait in my apartment for your taxi to arrive? Or like,
00:21:34
Speaker
If their phones died, like, do you want to come into my apartment and I'll charge your phone? Like any kind of excuse seeking he can to sort of come across like a nice guy, he'll sort of use it to sort of lure them into his apartment.
00:21:47
Speaker
Once he will get them inside, he'll offer them a drink. Like, oh, do you want like one last drink before you go? Or do you want the one last drink before you crash here for the night? Which he will then obviously lace with GHB.
00:21:58
Speaker
The guy will become unconscious. He has two two mobile phones. So one of them he has set up like on his desk to film the act in like wide shot. And then he holds one in his hand during the assaults for close-up shots.
00:22:17
Speaker
So he's literally, yeah, he's like lit the environment so he can get as much detail as possible into these videos. And he's taking pictures.
00:22:28
Speaker
He does this multiple times. um There are a few incidents where guys will sort of come to during the proceedings but because they're so heavily drugged like they can't really sort of fight back against him and a lot of the times they'll just kind of give up and by the morning they can't remember what's happened anyway so it doesn't really sort of matter that they've kind of like regained consciousness a little bit but a lot of them don't wake up at all they're just completely conked out
00:23:02
Speaker
he must He must be like somewhat strong though, because i mean he's able i mean I guess they're walking up to his apartment on their own, but he must be able to physically maneuver them in some way once they're inside. yeah I guess. Yeah, I never really thought about that. like yeah From the descriptions of him, and i've seen photos of him, he is very thin, like, and he was pretty short.
00:23:29
Speaker
But yeah, I guess, I mean, I don't know how difficult it is to, like, move a guy. I mean, I'm just thinking about an average, it like, this type this type you're describing, like, we're talking, like, an average of, like, 180 to 200 pounds. i mean, that's and the person is dead weight, you know?
00:23:47
Speaker
He must have been able, I'm just pointing out that he must have been able, I guess I'm already positing cons conspiracy conspiratorial thinking, like, was he the only one involved? But I guess they have all these videos, so they know for a fact he was the only one involved, because there weren't like other there weren't other people in the videos. And I think, um like, from from what I've gathered, like, once he's sort of given them the drink, he's like so he's still engaging in conversation with them. So, like, if they...
00:24:12
Speaker
If they're starting to express maybe that they feel unwell or something, he might say like, oh, do you want to go and lie down? And then he's already got them in the bed or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't know that for a fact, but I know that he was sort of talking to them to ascertain whether or not the drugs were taking effect. So so it's it's possible that he...
00:24:31
Speaker
He had some kind of workaround for that to sort of get them right get them into a position where they were manageable. um But yeah, he's he's doing this pretty consistently for the best part of two years and is just getting away with it.
00:24:47
Speaker
as well as sort of like taking photographs and the videos of them, he would often like steal trophies from them. So he might like steal their mobile phone or their like ID card or their keys or something. um And he's got this like box under his bed of like little sort of trophies that he's stolen from each of the guys.
00:25:08
Speaker
um He also had like folders on his computer where he would it was almost like he was sort of archiving them so that he would have like individual folders with like names on. And then inside he would have sort of the video and then the photos that he'd taken of them. And then he would have like screenshots of their, their Facebook page or their like Instagram page.
00:25:34
Speaker
Um, so he would know like what their names was. There are also a few incidents where he would like find them on Facebook and then maybe message them the next day and just say something friendly, like, Oh, I hope you got home. Okay. Or something like this. So he is kind of like, he's,
00:25:51
Speaker
he's kind of engaging with them a little bit afterwards to sort of sell this idea that he's like ah a nice guy. Right. But it feels very like methodical the way that he's sort of like archiving these things. um And ultimately, obviously that's, that's what helps with this sort of like downfall, which we'll get to. But yeah, it's, it's madness. Like the sheer like volume, I don't know how,
00:26:13
Speaker
I don't know how you could get away with it for so long without like somebody sort of saying something or like suspecting something. His friends at the time like did say that they found it weird that he would always be out really late at night. So a lot of these incidents are taking place sort of at the kind of time where people would be going home from a night out, not like going out. But a lot of his friends would mention like he would be, he would be not home at like four in the morning and things like this, which, which they, they found a little bit unusual, but none of them suspected that he was involved in anything even remotely sort of like
Challenges in Addressing Male Sexual Assault
00:26:47
Speaker
this.
00:26:47
Speaker
And like, he's not going out with them and he's not like, he's not like claiming he has like, you know, people often have multiple groups of friends or whatever, but he's not, it's like, he's doing, it's like, he's being mysterious. I would assume it's like, yeah, he's not like, Oh, I was out with, I don't know. i'm go to make up a random name. I was out with Sam. You know what I mean? Like, yeah,
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. There was one victim in particular who um managed to escape without without actually being assaulted. So he meets this one guy. um This guy actually came out. um This was after the story sort became public. This guy sort of came out and talked about his run-in with Raynard. And he basically said that he like ah he'd met Raynard outside the nightclub like the other guys. them This guy had like...
00:27:43
Speaker
offered to, i think to let him come and charge his phone as apartment or to, to get him a drink or something like that. So he'd like, they'd gone back to this guy's apartment. Um, the guy had refused to drink when he was offered it. Cause he thought it was a little bit weird. So he wanted this, this guy seems like the only one who's sort of clued up.
00:28:02
Speaker
Um, But yeah, he found that he found Raynard to be a little bit strange. So he refuses a drink when he's offered it and ends up sort of like leaving the apartment, like after his phone is charged a little bit.
00:28:14
Speaker
um So he sort of escapes being assaulted. There was also, i though i think there was another guy who um... He actually did assault who went to the police about the next day.
00:28:26
Speaker
But the guy, cause he couldn't remember anything that happened. He also couldn't remember where the guy lived. So even though the police took his DNA, because like this Raynard guy didn't have a criminal record and he hadn't been committed of any crimes and the guy didn't know where he lived.
00:28:42
Speaker
They just had no way of finding him. So like nothing really came of it. That was like a couple of months before he actually got caught. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I need you to slow down for a second right here. So a guy, a guy did go someone and say that he had been assaulted, but the British police said they couldn't find the guy. is that right? is that what you just said? Yeah. One thing about your country is, isn't it famously like isn't it famously like ridiculously CCTV'd out? Couldn't the guy say, like I was in this general area and the police would have a pretty easy time obtaining footage? I would assume. Yes, but they would they wouldn't do that. like this is this is We are very heavily CCTV'd in the UK, but the police are like very reluctant to like actually look into crime. like This is a big issue here in general.
00:29:34
Speaker
and like If you report a crime, like you could report your your bike stolen and it could have like an air tag on it so you know exactly where it is and the police would do nothing about it.
00:29:45
Speaker
We're very sort of like heavily surveilled, but the police just don't investigate crime. so it's not It's not that weird to me that they wouldn't do anything about it They would basically, they might, like, if they've taken this guy's DNA, they would probably, like, run it through a database and see if they've got this guy on record. But if they notice that they haven't got him on record, they probably just close the case and wouldn't take it any further. That's, that, it, it, they wouldn't go to any real effort, I don't think, to,
00:30:12
Speaker
to seek this guy out based on like one report um unfortunately um but yeah that's i mean and also i think there's a not to some not to get too woke about it but i think there's like a reluctance amongst like the police force in the UK to take like male sexual assaults seriously. Um, I think it's, I think it's something that they, they don't necessarily take as serious as as they would if like a woman was raped. Well, we know from that, that one like rape gang thing that like, they don't even necessarily take that stuff seriously. Well, no, they don't. Um, but yeah, it out of, out of like the, the multiple guys that this, this guy sort of raped, I think like,
00:30:55
Speaker
I don't know. I think it's just a case of bad luck, I guess, that they that they didn't sort of investigate further when this one guy comes forward.
Capture and Trial of Raynard Sinaga
00:31:01
Speaker
In terms of like how he was actually caught, on June 1st, 2007, so this is about just over two years after he started doing it, he meets this guy.
00:31:15
Speaker
outside nightclub. Some accounts name him him as Peter, but I don't know whether this is actually a pseudonym, but we'll call him Peter for the sake of the podcast. So he meets this guy, Peter, outside the nightclub, who he's been on a night out. I think he's just finished doing his exams. He's 18 years old. He's like a rugby player. He's just been doing his final exam, so he's celebrating with his friends. And it's just getting a little bit too much to him. Maybe he's had a couple too many drinks, so he just goes outside for some fresh air.
00:31:45
Speaker
He sparks up a conversation with Renard. They're chatting a little bit. Renard tells him that he's a student as well and that he's just finished doing his exams. And they're sort of they're just having like a nice conversation and...
00:31:56
Speaker
the The guy like isn't really that interested in going back into the club. like He's enjoying sort of the peaceful, sort of quiet conversation that he's having outside with Renard. and Renard suggests that they go back to his apartment, which is like two minutes away, um and continue the conversation there. So the guy agrees. He goes with him. He seems nice. They go inside.
00:32:17
Speaker
Renard fixes this guy a drink. um again spikes it with the ghb after sort of 10 minutes or so the rugby player guy starts feeling unwell and everything sort of goes to plan the way that it normally does he has the camera set up in the bedroom he starts assaulting him but this time the guy starts to wake up and whenever this has happened before even when the guys have sort of come to a little bit they've always been too incapacitated to really do anything about what's happening to them.
00:32:49
Speaker
But this guy, he's like a rugby player. He's pretty strong. He's maybe he's more resistant to the drugs than the other guys that have gone before. But for some reason, he wakes up basically being penetrated realizes what's happening and he starts fighting back like starts sort of punching him and sort of kicking him renard like is completely panicked because this has never happened before and immediately starts screaming intruder intruder so if any neighbors here they'll think that someone's like broke into his apartment is like attacking him eating him up yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they they get into like a fight.
00:33:27
Speaker
they He's like, the rugby player guy is like be like beating him up, i' trying to escape. He manages to get out of the apartment and he iss Somehow he's gotten hold of the the phone that belongs to Renard rather than his own phone. I think he's like he's gone to like grab a phone and he's grabbed the the the rapist guy's phone instead of his own.
00:33:56
Speaker
um He starts banging on the doors of the neighbors um asking for help basically. The neighbors call the police. The police arrive, they see they see Renard like basically like a bloody mess on the floor in this apartment. They see the rugby player guy who's like a big guy and they assume that he's he's the attacker, he's not the victim. So they arrest him, and take him to jail and they take Renard to the hospital. While Renard is in the hospital, he he's telling sort of the staff at the hospital that he was like sexually assaulted by this guy. The guy who is in in prison has told the police that he was he was like so of drugged and raped, but nobody believes him. Okay. and
00:34:45
Speaker
It's only when police interview Renard at the hospital and ask for his mobile phone that they realize something is wrong. because even though they don't believe necessarily the rugby player a story, like they still have to kind of check it out. And this guy has obviously told them like, Oh, look at his phone. So they ask, um, they ask Renard for his phone while they're at the hospital and they ask him for like his like pin number to like unlock it.
00:35:15
Speaker
Um, Renard keeps giving them like false, like pin numbers. Cause he obviously doesn't want them to get into the phone.
00:35:23
Speaker
and So like you can imagine the scene in the hospital where he's just like, like lying and like telling them the wrong numbers and they're starting to find this suspicious and Renard is getting sort more and more aggravated.
00:35:35
Speaker
Eventually they get access to the phone and there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of video files of all of these like guys basically getting raped. I think um I've got like some figures somewhere.
00:35:53
Speaker
i think, yeah, he's recorded 3.9 terabytes of footage in total, which is the equivalent of 250 DVDs.
00:36:04
Speaker
um So this is like wow like in ah insane quantities of like video footage. Obviously, once they... They find this like video information. They like search his apartment. They find the the sort of trophies that he's kept. They find all the files on his computer, the archives that he's got of people's sort of Facebook profiles and the pictures that he's taken of them and stuff. And from that, they start sort of building a case against him.
00:36:31
Speaker
They're able to... use a lot of the things that he's collected. So the, the like phones and the ID cards and stuff to identify some of the victims. And they're able to use sort of the, the like Facebook profile images that he's taken to identify some of them. Um, but they still, even to this day, haven't identified all of them. So they're, I think they managed to identify about 70 men, maybe more than that. I can't remember the actual figure, but that,
00:37:00
Speaker
I think to this day, there are still quite a lot of men that they haven't been able to identify and get in touch with to sort of explain what happened. I guess they don't want to like, just put these like, like publish these in some way and be like, you know,
00:37:17
Speaker
were you a victim of this? Because then these men's like photos and stuff are like out there. yeah None of, none of the images have been made public. So you, you don't have access to them at all. Like, I mean, I guess I just mean, even from investigative standpoint, like they don't want to,
00:37:35
Speaker
you know, yeah, they, my point is they don't want to like, like, like they can't, they can't just say like, if you're in these photos, contact us, you know what i mean? No, they know they can't. Um, because that would obviously mean they'd have to make them public and they're not prepared to do that. I think they are, they are very keen to like find a lot of these victims cause they want to offer support for them. But yeah, like, like you were saying before, like, I don't necessarily know whether I would want to know in a situation like that, if it had happened to me. I mean, i feel like I wouldn't want to know. i don't know if that's like an a natural response. Like if I had found a way to sort of like process this like blacked out night and I had just kind of moved on from it without like a whole lot of questions. Like I'm not sure that I would really want to know, but at the same time, I'm not sure if I'm being a hundred percent honest because
00:38:28
Speaker
Like my one reaction when I have blacked out is like, I immediately want to know exactly as as much detail as I can possibly know. mostly so I can find out if I said or did anything stupid. Not because I think something if bad happened to me, but I'm like, i do I do kind of want the mortifying details because I just, you know.
00:38:50
Speaker
It's weird to kind of like approach it, I think from a gay perspective. There would definitely be some sort of, yeah, more like a higher... sense of shame maybe if you were straight. But i yeah, anyway, we we have to cut that part out.
00:39:06
Speaker
Yeah, we we do. Anyway, but we'll move on to like the case. Let me get my notes about the actual trial. and So like after he's arrested, obviously the police... begin the process of trying to identify the victims and like get in touch with them and obviously explain what's happened. So they're, they're going around to these guys' houses. They're like showing them sort of still images from the videos and explaining what's happened. I mean, I will, I will say at that point,
00:39:37
Speaker
if like a police officer did come to me and were showing me still images, i would say at that point, I do think I would say i need to, I want to watch the whole video. Like I want to know what happened to me.
00:39:48
Speaker
like if if if it if it Even though I would rather them not reveal it to me at all, if they did, i would want to sit there and be like, I need to see, you know? Yeah. In terms of like the reactions of the guys, um like obviously they're all like sort of anonymous, but we did have there are some sort of statements from them like describing like what it was like. One of the guys said, like I can't describe the crushing moment. I was told what had happened to me.
00:40:15
Speaker
It has destroyed a part of my life and the shock made me attempt to take my own life. There are a few of the guys, a few of the guys actually like tried to take their own lives afterwards. and Thankfully none of them,
00:40:26
Speaker
like were successful in that. um But yeah, many of the men reacted with like horror, disbelief, shame. When the actual case went to trial, four trials took place because there were so many victims and they they did struggle, I think, to get all of the men to sort of like stand trial. So they all didn't like some of them refused because they they they didn't want to sort of like deal with it, I think in court.
00:40:54
Speaker
So there were four trials that took place um starting in 2018. The first one took place on the 1st of June that was regarding 13 victims. The second was in April, 2019. That was another 12 victims. There was another one in September that was 10 victims. And then there was one in December that was 13 victims. I mean, do they even, just so just a legal question, like do they even need the person to agree to come forward if there's like video evidence? Well, this is another this isn't the problem. So ordinarily, no. The fact that there's video evidence would ordinarily have been enough if the guy had pleaded guilty.
00:41:33
Speaker
But he didn't plead guilty. His defense was that ah he he basically he pleaded not guilty to every single count. and I think there were like 148 counts or something like this. It was a huge number. And he basically he pleaded not guilty to all of them. And he said that...
00:41:52
Speaker
all of these interactions were consensual and that it was role play with the guys. He basically argued that these guys had agreed to sort of like play dead for him while he like had sex with them. And because because he'd used that as his defense,
00:42:09
Speaker
48 of these guys had to come into the court and basically get like questioned by like the defense team, watch the video in court in front of a jury and relive the whole experience.
00:42:22
Speaker
I mean, I'm just, yeah, I guess I understand that but I would also just kind of like, surely, In the video, it's at least some of the videos, I would imagine it would be fairly obvious that the person was literally passed out versus pretending. Well, that was the... that was I mean, yes, I agree. like That was one of the things that the jury mentioned. like gateway His defense kind of fell apart when you could clearly see in the videos. like These guys, ah a lot of them were snoring. like You could tell that they're completely asleep.
00:42:57
Speaker
Right. so So even though even though he's he's come out with this defense, there was no way that he
Conviction and Sentencing Controversies
00:43:04
Speaker
was ever going to get off. Like there was no way he wasn't going to be found guilty. So he was convicted of 136 counts of rape, 14 counts of sexual assault, eight counts of attempted rape, and one count of assault by penetration.
00:43:18
Speaker
In the first two trials, he was given 88 concurrent life sentences with a minimum 30-year term before being considered for parole. There was quite a lot of outrage about this in the UK that he was only given 30 years, and it ended up going to the Court of Appeals, and they actually extended that to 40 years.
00:43:38
Speaker
So it's it's not it's not he'll be out in 40 years. it's In 40 years' time, he'll be able to appeal for I mean, 40 years, 30 years does seem like too low. 40 years at that point.
00:43:51
Speaker
I mean, I hope he never gets out. He'll be like 77. Yeah. i hope he never gets out. But I mean, I'm assuming, i mean, 77 is probably, i would guess the, basically the average life expectancy of a man in the UK. So, I mean, it's effect, you know, it's like effectively like a life sentence. Yeah.
00:44:12
Speaker
His um parents, when they were sort of told about it, like his mom, I think to this day is just in complete denial. She has been to visit him. She basically just said that like she doesn't believe in homosexuality, so she doesn't really believe that her son could be gay. She likes to think that the final victim just made the whole thing up and and she's just kind of living in sort of like la-la land, blissfully ignoring the facts that are laid out in front of her. had His dad, he wasn't sympathetic, but he he said that they they accepted the sentencing and that they felt that the the verdict was like fitting of the crimes and didn't really have anything else to say about it.
00:44:57
Speaker
Are the parents divorced? No, no, they're still married. They're still like quite wealthy, like influential figures in Indonesia. um One report said that that apparently, I know 2023, he was actually beaten up in jail. So and another inmate like basically beat the shit out of him, which is and understandable given the the crimes. And um there was there was like brief talk about...
00:45:25
Speaker
um, Indonesia trying to do like, maybe like a prisoner exchange or something. So they could have him extra died to Indonesia and he could serve a sentence over there. Um, but cause Indonesia is quite a corrupt sort of country. He, he probably would have a pretty cushy life in jail over there. Oh really? Cause I am, I would imagine if I had to guess that jail in Indonesia fucking sucks, like way more than jail.
00:45:52
Speaker
i think jail and and I think jail in Indonesia can suck, but if you've got extremely wealthy parents with a lot of influence, then you can have a pretty cushy time with I don't know what country that movie Broke Down Palace is in, but I did watch that as like a 19-year-old, the Claire Danes one. And I remember thinking like... Oh my gosh, like if I ever went to jail in like a Southeast Asian country, like I would rather just be killed. Like it looked so awful and bad and scary. so yeah. Yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
Regardless, like nothing ever came of it. So he is still in the UK and I think he will like s surface entire sentence here. yeah But yeah, that's, that's pretty much like, I mean, as a Catholic, I don't believe in the death penalty, but in situations like this, I'm like, what a waste of money. Like you guys have to keep this guy alive for 40 years. Like when he's clearly like, I mean, come on, they he's he's like completely irredeemable. There's no way you could rehabilitate someone like that. Like I would never believe there was something you could do to make a person like that safe to be in society again. So it's like, no, the psychology of it is just like, Insane to me. Like, that must be something about, like, I don't i don't know where it comes from. him I think he's clearly some kind of, like, narcissist. Especially to to even, like, even deny it when he's faced with, like, this, like, mound of, like, physical evidence that of his crimes. Oh, I mean, he's definitely narcissist because, I mean, to he basically forced...
00:47:28
Speaker
you know, I'm sure this was exciting for him. He basically forced his victims to come into court and like face him and like watch the videos of their own rape. Like, I mean, he didn't have to do that. Like he could have easily just like,
00:47:45
Speaker
I mean, probably for even a slightly better outcome in his, like, case, just admitted to it because the evidence was irrefutable. I mean, he clearly has, like, you know, seriously. But, like, I don't even care. Like, i mean, to me, like, if something, even if you can prove that something is, like,
00:48:05
Speaker
irredeemably fucked up in someone's brain, I'm like, okay, well, they still can't live amongst like society. like There's still like an unsafe... Even if you can prove it's like something... like you know like Whenever people talk about sociopaths or whatever, psychopaths, I'm like, even if you could prove that, like okay, there is something that's like not their fault. They like were born with this. I'm like, whatever. They still can't be around people. Yeah.
00:48:30
Speaker
you know like It was interesting. i wrote down. So basically, like you know I said he he was doing like a like a third degree basically at Leeds University and he was sort like um like going back and forth between Leeds and Manchester. So his dissertation that he was doing at Leeds was like,
00:48:51
Speaker
it was ah It was actually rejected, which was one of the reasons why he was able to stay in the UK for so long, because the um the subject of his degree was um his thesis was sexuality and everyday transnationalism amongst South Asian gay and bisexual men in Manchester.
00:49:10
Speaker
So his whole like dissertation was basically just about himself. um And it was like it was rejected by the university, but they gave him the option to like sort of go away and like redo it, which is why he was like he managed to so be in the UK for so long, even though he was on a student visa. Now he'll be in the UK like forever, basically. but like Yeah, I don't know. that but there's there's There's some kind of psychology about like the fact that all of his victims were guys that he could never have in a million years because, that well, first of all, they're straight. Something about like like possessing like guys like that, I don't know. It's it's it's so fucked up.
00:49:52
Speaker
but Well, I mean, there definitely is an element of... like if you think about gay porn, like there is an element of this, like kind of in gay porn, like, you know, like getting a straight guy or whatever. um And I do think it's ah obvious an obvious fantasy of like many, many gay men to have a straight guy But I think for the most part, like, you know, I think that that fantasy fades for a lot of gay guys, like once they get older, you know,
00:50:27
Speaker
they actually do have like fun sexual experiences and romantic experiences with um other gay
Social Dynamics in the Gay Community
00:50:34
Speaker
guys. So they like kind of stop fetishizing the straight guy as much. By all accounts, like from his friends and stuff, like he, he was also doing that. Like he had like lots of boyfriends. He was like very like active socially, had a lot of gay friends. So it's like, um it's weird that he,
00:50:53
Speaker
he still needed this, like, on top of having, like, for, I don't know, sort of, like, I mean, living in Manchester as a gay guy, he's having, like, the primo gay experience, and he still feels the need to, like, do this on top of it. Well, he had, like, I mean, he see he had, he probably, I mean, he clearly had, like, a serious sexual compulsion issue.
00:51:12
Speaker
Like, I do think that, like, you know, he, this probably became, like, a very ritualized and, like, compulsive thing. um And, you know, just, yeah, I, but I mean, I've always found like, I don't like being around gay guys who, when they're in the presence of straight guys, like act creepy. I've never liked being around that type of person. Yeah. Me neither. know what you mean. It's like stressful because it's like, you know, mean, think that,
00:51:45
Speaker
when you're young and you're drunk, like, and you're all hanging out, like people do act that way. um I'm sure that like, I acted flirty with straight guys when I was like younger, but I think it's like a bad look. And I think, I think that like, yeah, it's always been like kind of important for me, like when dating to like date guys who have straight male friends as well. Like, I think,
00:52:14
Speaker
I think that demonstrates like something that that I like about guys. like i couldn't date it I couldn't date a guy who like only hangs out with like other gay people and and is incapable of engaging with straight guys. like I find that so off-putting. Yeah, no, I agree. There's definitely like a gay guy who can have straight friends and a gay guy who like only has girlfriends. and They're like a very different like breed of um gay guy but yeah i mean just i just think it's yeah anyway whatever horrible case i'm glad he's in jail i hope he dies in there same me too um but yeah we've we've done like an hour pretty much so um i didn't really have anything else to say i'm sorry everyone that was such a depressing one today but um but is it's interesting it's definitely an interesting case all right bye twinkies bye twinkies love you