The moment I feared my gentle boy would be jailed for murder
THE mother of the teenager who fought off Reynhard Sinaga has described the chilling moment she thought the serial rapist had died – and how she feared her son would be charged with his murder. As he came round after being drugged by Sinaga, Peter fought frantically to escape, lashing out with punches and leaving the Indonesian student with a suspected bleed on the brain. Police had initially been sceptical of Peter’s story of being raped, so when a detective rang his mother a day later saying they needed to speak to him urgently, she feared the worst.
She said: ‘That phone call was the moment I thought, “Oh my God, this guy has died” and that my son was going to prison. I thought my son’s life was over.’
It soon transpired, however, that Sinaga was alive and recovering well in hospital. But instead of being able to savour the relief, Peter and his family were then horrified to learn that he had been sexually assaulted.
A video found on a mobile phone showed Sinaga abusing Peter as he lay drugged and unconscious in Sinaga’s grubby flat in Manchester.
In a profoundly moving interview, Peter’s mother spoke of her pride in the way her son coped following the attack and his courage in facing Sinaga down in court. But she i s beset by fears that her son, despite ‘putting on a brave face’, may be ‘bottling’ up his emotions.
In tears she said: ‘I get emotional when I think about him being so brave and what he has gone through. Everybody deals with things differently. It has affected some of the lads [the other victims] quite a lot mentally.
‘I hope it is not a front. I don’t think it is because of his personality and the way he behaves has not changed. I think he is living in denial a bit because he has just been told what happened to him – he has no physical memory of it happening to him.
‘In his mind, he woke up in time and fought the guy off and that’s the way he deals with it. He didn’t want to see the video because that would have made it real. This is why I think he has remained his chirpy and bouncy self.’
She added: ‘I was really pleased when he got a girlfriend when he went off to university because I was wondering if this might have put him off or changed him.
‘It was a good sign for me that he was moving on and being a normal lad and doing what normal 19-yearolds do.’
That may be so, but Peter’s mother said she and her husband continue to keep a close eye on him for any sign that he may start to struggle with what happened. There have been moments that have caused them to pause for thought. ‘One of his ex-girlfriend’s best friends was an Indonesian gay guy who looked similar to Sinaga,’ the mother said. ‘He did have some issues at first with him – he didn’t trust him.’
She revealed she was at first cross with her son when he called her at 5.20am on June 2, 2017, and pleaded with her for a lift.
She drove to pick him up, not knowing the horrifying ordeal he had been through. But when she arrived at the block of flats her son had directed her to, she was confronted by a scene that would strike fear into the heart of any parent.
She described seeing flashing blue lights and ‘police everywhere’ before spotting her son speaking to officers in the foyer.
She recalled: ‘ I could see his T-shirt was all pulled around his neck and I said to him, “Is that your blood? Whose blood is that?”
‘That’s when he said, “I think he was trying to rape me.” I just froze at that point.’
She was asked by officers to drive her son to a nearby police station and on the way Peter opened up about what had happened to him. She said: ‘ I was saying to him, “What the hell happened? You could have been killed.”
‘He was saying, “He wouldn’t let me out. I think he was trying to rape me.” ’
Within two days Peter would go from being treated as a suspect to a rape victim.
As the full horror of Sinaga’s depravity began to emerge, Peter was called back to the police station and given the news that a video showed Sinaga raping him at the flat. The devastated teenager asked a policewoman to break the news to his mother.
His mother said: ‘A policewoman took me into a side room and sat me down and told me what they had found. We are not a family of screamers and shouters – we don’t burst into tears.
‘I just had a numb feeling, like what do we do now?
‘I am quite a calm person, like my son, but his dad is more of a hothead. When we got home I told him that police had found a rape video he was yelling and calling Sinaga names, saying, “that dirty b******.” He was really angry.’
SHE said the traumatic experience had made the family, who live in a neat, three-bed semi-detached house in the suburbs of Manchester, stronger. ‘We have gone through it together and supported each other through it,’ she said. ‘His sister was only 16 when all of this first happened but we didn’t keep it from her.
‘We didn’t want to keep asking him if he was OK… His dad is a bit more worried when Peter is out. He will be checking his phone and following Peter’s social media updates about where he is and making sure he is not alone.
‘I don’t get too worried. He’s not going to put himself in that situation again. He has a really lovely bunch of mates – girls and boys – and they have been amazing.’
But she added: ‘I do worry if what happened could affect him in later life. We are all keeping a close eye on him.’
I thought, my God, the guy has died… and my son’s life is over