11/01/2020
On Monday 6th January 2020, Reynhard Sinaga was found guilty of luring 48 men from outside Manchester clubs to his flat, where he drugged and assaulted them.
Sinaga, who was already serving life, with a minimum term of 20 years, for offences he was convicted of in two earlier trials, has now been convicted of 159 sex offences, including 136 rapes. The judge has now ruled that his sentence should be be at least 30 years in jail.
Sinaga was caught in June 2017 when a victim regained consciousness while being assaulted, fought Sinaga off and called the police.
A judge has said that he will "never be safe to be released"
Police seized Sinaga's phone and found he had filmed his attacks; there were hundreds of hours of footage.
According to Assistant Chief Constable Mabbs Hussain, the true extent of Sinaga's offending will probably never be known. "We suspect he's offended over a period of 10 years," he said. "The information and evidence we are going from is largely from trophies that he's collected from the victims of his crimes."
Investigators traced dozens of victims from the videos using clues found in Sinaga's Manchester flat, including stolen phones, ID cards and watches.
Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, Ian Rushton, said Sinaga was "the most prolific rapist in British legal history" and possibly "in the world. His extreme sense of sexual entitlement almost defies belief and he would no doubt still be adding to his staggering tally had he not been caught," he said. He added that he thought Sinaga took "a particular pleasure in preying on heterosexual men."
Just days after the news about Sinaga was published, came confirmation that a 21 year old woman had been sentenced at Winchester Crown Court for sexual offences involving four girls. She was jailed for eight years.
Gemma Watts pretended to be a teenage boy, enabling her to develop relationships with young girls who she groomed, and then sexually assaulted. Police believe she may have assaulted up to 50 victims.
Scotland Yard said Watts had used her own picture on Snapchat and Instagram accounts, pretending to be 'Jake', targeting girls aged between 13 and 16. She used teenage slang to help her appear 'real', sent flattering messages and shared intimate photographs before travelling to meet them in person.
One 14-year-old girl said her "heart exploded" when she learned the truth about Watts from the police. In a victim statement read out in court, she said: "My world stopped, I actually stopped breathing... I loved him so much."
The offences that Watts has admitted to relate to a 13-year-old from Plymouth, two 14-year-olds from Surrey and Hampshire and a 16-year-old from the West Midlands.
Judge Susan Evans QC said Watts had groomed young girls for her own gratification. "Their youth, as you plainly knew, made them more naive and made you more likely to get away with your deception," she told Watts.
Detective Constable Phillipa Kenwright said the victims, "all believed they were in a relationship with a male" and had been "completely taken in" by Watts. "It's been life-changing for all of the victims involved."
Both of these sexual predators are extremely disturbing individuals, who have caused immense damage to their victims.
It is hard for me, and am sure most people, to understand how these two monsters set about these horrific crimes. Sinaga targeted inebriated men coming out of nightclubs, gaining their trust and playing the part of the Good Samaritan. Watts, on the other hand, preyed on vulnerable young girls, grooming them and even convincing some parents that she really was a 16 year old boy and managing to spend the night with at least one of her victims.
I hope that Sinaga will indeed serve at least 30 years, but that he is only ever released if he has shown remorse for his crimes and has been assessed as no longer posing a threat to anyone.
As for Watts, I cannot help but think that her sentence is too lenient.
Eight years. Given the UK's approach to sentencing and the actual time served by offenders, it is likely that she would be released 'on licence' after four years. I cannot imagine how her victims would feel if they were to learn that the predator that groomed and sexually assaulted them was released from prison whilst they had still not finished being teenagers.
This is one of the cases where the automatic release on license half way through a sentence cannot be right. In my opinion, Gemma Watts should be incarcerated for at least a decade and should not be eligible to serve any part of her sentence on license. She should only be considered for release if and when she is considered to no longer be a threat to young girls, or anyone else.
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