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Grieving families of serial killer Stephen Port’s four victims heaped shame onto the Met Police today – after a jury found force failings on his first murder let him kill three more young men.
An inquest into all of Port’s four victims said ‘fundamental’ mistakes looking at Anthony Walgate’s death ‘probably’ contributed to Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor being subsequently killed.
The devastating ruling was summed up best by Mr Whitworth’s stepmother who sobbed: ‘These three boys could have been still walking around today had they investigated Anthony’s death properly.’
Port, 46, lured the unsuspecting victims to his east London flat then plied them with a fatal dose of date rape drug GHB before dumping their bodies nearby as part of a sick fetish for sex with unconscious men in 2014 and 2015.
Today the IOPC announced it was considering reopening its probe into 17 officers involved in the case. Nine officers were given re-training but were not formally disciplined after the investigation in 2018.
Families of all four victims said through lawyer Neil Hudgell: ‘The inadequate investigations by the Metropolitan Police into the deaths of Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel and Jack should be on public record as one of the most widespread institutional failures in modern history.
‘The jury has been unanimous in identifying fundamental failings and basic errors in the investigation into Anthony’s death which meant that Port was not stopped, and was allowed to carry on with his terrible acts.
Sex predator Port (pictured) gave fatal doses of date rape drug GHB to four young gay men, and dumped their bodies near his flat in Barking, east London
Anthony Walgate (left) and Gabriel Kovari (right) were Port’s first two victims
An inquest heard if police had followed up leads, Port could have been caught before the deaths of Daniel Whitworth (left) and Jack Taylor (right)
Families of those murdered by Stephen Port at the conclusion of their inquest at Barking Town Hall today after the jury result
The 19 failures that left Port free to kill time and time again
1. Fashion-conscious first victim’s back-to-front underwear failed to arouse suspicion with officers
It was Port himself who called 999 to report ‘finding’ Mr Walgate unconscious outside his flat, although he later admitted dumping his body after the pair met for sex. He killed three men by the time he was jailed in March 2015 for perverting the course of justice in the Walgate case.
Fashion-conscious Mr Walgate was found with his underpants on back to front and inside out, but police said this was ‘unusual, not necessarily suspicious or sinister’.
2. Police did not background check Port, only his victim
Investigators at the scene were not told of a previous allegation of rape against Port on the police national computer from 2012, who was traced as being the person who called 999 to report the body.
In fact, police only checked the national database for Mr Walgate, not Port.
3. Police decided bruising under Mr Walgate’s arms did not suggest assault and sex swabs were not sent for testing
Another officer deduced there was ‘nothing to suggest the victim had been assaulted’, despite bruising under Mr Walgate’s arms, while sex swabs taken from his body were not submitted for DNA testing.
4. Port’s laptop – stuffed with searches for drug rape videos – was not opened for ten months
Perhaps most crucially, police failed to submit a laptop belonging to Port for forensic analysis for 10 months after it was seized in the wake of Mr Walgate’s death, and then missed repeated searches for drug rape videos contained on the device.
5. CPS were not told Port could have been a sex offender when making their charging decision
The Crown Prosecution Service was also not given information that Port was a suspected sex offender when they ruled out a homicide charge over Mr Walgate’s death.
6. Police ignored information in Port’s first interview that police had looked at him over sexual assaults before
Police soon knew that Port had lied to them from the outset, eventually charging him with perverting the course of justice. But they did not follow up information he volunteered during his initial interviews about his previous involvement with police on suspicion of sexual assault.
7. Local police requests for murder squad to take over were repeatedly turned down
Requests from the local police officers for the Met’s specialist murder investigation team to take over the investigation were repeatedly dismissed, meaning inexperienced officers were in charge of the case.
8. Police were convinced Mr Walgate had died of an overdose because he was a sex worker
Two of Mr Walgate’s friends were convinced his death was suspicious and aired their concerns, but said they believed police assumed he had overdosed on drugs simply because he was a gay sex worker. Sarah Sak, the victim’s mother, told police she was convinced it was ‘murder’, but said police told her ‘it was probably drugs’.
9. Police dismissed Mr Kovari’s murder as non-suspicious so took no samples to analyse
Aspiring English teacher Mr Kovari was found slumped in a graveyard near Port’s home. But the scene was not declared suspicious, so his body was not subjected to a forensic post-mortem examination. His clothing was not seized and so was not analysed, and no samples were taken from his body.
10. Police missed chance to speak to friend, who had evidence on his phone victim had been in Port’s flat before his murder
Police did not follow up leads to trace Mr Kovari’s friend, Karl Kamgdon, who Mr Kovari sent pictures to from inside Port’s flat when he arrived there, and was the last person he spoke to.
11. Friends found evidence Port had killed Mr Kovari but were ignored by the police
John Pape, Mr Kovari’s friend, effectively turned detective to find the victim’s boyfriend in Spain, Thierry Amodio, who had been contacted by Port masquerading as another man. Both men supplied the police with information which would have led them to the serial killer, but they were repeatedly ignored.
12. Family liaison office did not contact the victim’s family, which could have produced clues something was amiss
A family liaison officer assigned to the Kovari case failed to contact the victims’ loved ones at all, and even referred to him as being from Lithuania rather than Slovakia.
13. Key tests that would have found Port’s DNA were not carried out at scene of third murder
Detectives failed to carry out key forensic tests including on the bed sheet on which chef Mr Whitworth was found, his clothes, so-called sex swabs taken from his body, and the drugs bottle planted on him – all of which carried Port’s DNA or fingerprints.
14. Police did not question the fake suicide note Port had planted at the scene to try and escape justice
Perhaps most crucially, the ‘suicide note’ planted by Port on Mr Whitworth’s body taking responsibility for Mr Kovari’s death appeared to be taken on face value by police. Only a section of its contents was sent to Mr Whitworth’s family, with disputes over whether his father was able to identify the handwriting as that of his son. The note was not shown to Mr Whitworth’s long-term boyfriend, Ricky Waumsley, for a year, and he said he felt cut out of the investigation entirely.
He later raised concerns about the ‘really impersonal’ nature of the content, that it did not mention any family members and that he could not be sure it was his partner’s handwriting.
15. Police missed unwitting clue Port put in the fake note, as they thought it referred to a homeless man
The note also contained a veiled reference to Port, asking police not to ‘blame the guy I was with last night’ in case the investigation eventually linked the victim with the serial killer. However, police arriving on the scene thought ‘the guy’ was a homeless man sleeping in the graveyard where Mr Whitworth was found. It was much later that a handwriting expert concluded the script matched Port’s while the notepad on which the suicide note was written was recovered from Port’s address.
There was no evidence Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth had ever met or contacted each other.
16. Note’s claims that the third victim killed the second could have been disproved if police had checked phone data
Police also failed to obtain full phone data that would have shown Mr Whitworth was not in Barking on the night of Mr Kovari’s death – creating an inaccuracy with the suicide note that claimed Mr Whitworth killed Mr Kovari.
Mr Walgate also showed signs of bruising under the arms consistent with being moved or carried before or after his death.
17. The same woman coincidentally found two victims, but still police did not entertain possibility they could be linked
Bizarrely, dog walker Barbara Denham, who discovered Mr Kovari’s body, was also the first on the scene for Mr Whitworth’s death.
She told police: ‘I was the same woman that found the other body a few weeks ago … I found another young boy.’
18. Police were told by family and coroner deaths may be connected but little was done
The final death was not linked to the previous three until a chance discovery nearly a month later – this was despite similarities that all four victims were young, gay men, with no links to the area, who were found dumped in public, within a short distance of each other. Mr Taylor’s family shared with police their concerns that the death might be linked to others in the area, as did the coroner.
19. Mr Taylor’s sisters clues were unheeded, along with victim’s anti-drugs views
In fact, his sisters kept notes of their own investigations, establishing similarities between the four deaths, referencing GHB and identifying Port’s address in Cooke Street.
The family were particularly suspicious that Mr Taylor – who wanted to become a policeman and was said to be resolutely anti-drugs – had apparently taken something on the night he died.
But their suggestions were dismissed by police who said there was ‘no reason to think they are connected’.
It was only when a detective working on the Walgate investigation chanced upon a print-out of a CCTV still of Mr Taylor with a ‘mystery man’ on the night he was last seen alive that he recognised him as Port and made the link with Mr Walgate’s death.
Another officer then linked them with the Kovari and Whitworth investigations.
‘We continue to believe that had the police done their jobs properly in the first place, Gabriel, Daniel and Jack would not have been killed and other young men would not have been drugged and raped by him.’
Mr Whitworth’s former partner Ricky Waumsley said current Met Commissioner Cressida Dick – who was not in charge at the time of the murders – should resign over the findings.
Police watchdog the IOPC also said it may open its investigation into officers following the evidence heard at the inquest.
Despite at first finding no evidence of misconduct, Regional Director Graham Beesley said: ‘Our thoughts remain with the families and friends of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor – we recognise how distressing it will have been to revisit the deaths of their loved ones over the past few months.
‘As the inquest has progressed, we have been assessing whether to reopen – either in full or in part – our investigation into the way the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) handled inquiries into their deaths, and that process is on-going.
‘The men were all murdered by Stephen Port in Barking between June 2014 and September 2015.
‘We can reopen an investigation where there are compelling reasons to do so. Those reasons could arise if new information has a real possibility of affecting our decisions and findings and is in the public interest.
‘We investigated the actions of 17 officers, all but one gave no comment interviews and provided written responses to our investigators.
‘We are examining if anything was said by the officers who gave evidence during the inquests which could alter our findings and give grounds to re-open our investigation.
‘In line with our our policy on re-opening investigations, and given the significant impact any decision may have on all of those involved, we will be seeking representations from all affected parties.
‘No individual officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct but the performance of nine officers fell below the standard required.
‘Of these nine officers, seven received feedback from their manager, known as management action. One of those also received informal learning for another related matter.
‘The remaining two officers were subject to formal unsatisfactory performance procedures and attended meetings to discuss their performance and appropriate action going forward.
‘We found no case to answer for the remaining eight officers in terms of misconduct. However, one of those eight officers underwent informal learning to improve their practice.
‘Our investigation report and a separate report focusing on organisational learning recommendations will be published at the conclusion of all proceedings.’
This is the latest in a string of scandals to hit confidence in the force.
It is still reeling from the crimes of serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, who faked an arrest to kidnap, rape and murder innocent Sarah Everard off the street.
Earlier this week PCs Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis were jailed for 33 months after sharing on Whatsapp pictures of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, whose bodies they were supposed to be guarding.
Today jurors returned a conclusion that Mr Walgate, a 23-year-old fashion student who did occasional escort work, was unlawfully killed.
Mr Walgate, originally from Hull, went to meet Port in Barking on June 17, 2014, and was not seen again until his lifeless body was discovered, outside Port’s flat, in the early hours of June 19.
It was Port who contacted the emergency services, repeatedly changing his account of how he came to find the young man.
Inquest jurors assembled at Barking Town Hall to deliver their conclusions over the deaths of Mr Walgate, Mr Kovari, 22, and the further two killings of Mr Whitworth, 21, and Mr Taylor, 25.
The four men were all murdered by Port between June 2014 and September 2015.
He plied them each with a fatal dose of date-rape drug GHB and dumped their bodies in public areas.
In written conclusions, the jury acknowledged officers’ ‘heavy workload’ but said there were failures that ‘cannot be overlooked’.
The jury said: ‘We believe there were fundamental failures in these investigations, which were at a basic level.’
It followed weeks of hearings at Barking Town Hall in which police admitted failing to carry out basic checks, send evidence to be forensically examined, and exercise professional curiosity during the 16-month killing spree, from June 2014 to September 2015.
Port, 46, a bus depot chef, will die in prison after being handed a whole life sentence at the Old Bailey for the murders and a string of sex assaults.
Since the inquests began, a new alleged victim has come forward to say they believe they were drugged and sexually assaulted by Port in the same period.
The victims’ loved one claimed failings stemmed from prejudice, because the victims were gay and their deaths were drug-related.
Officers had denied it, blaming mistakes on being understaffed and lacking resources, with some acting up in senior positions.
Coroner Sarah Munro QC barred jurors from deciding on the issue of homophobia for legal reasons.
Jurors deliberated for a week before returning their conclusions, after hearing that none of the victims was from the area, and was either anti-drugs or had no known use of GHB.
Mr Kovari’s friend, John Pape, maintained that ‘institutional homophobia’ played a part.
He said: ‘You have to hope prejudice did play a part.
‘Because if the Met were this incompetent with every serious crime, regardless of the victim’s origin, sexuality or the setting in which they are found, rapists and murderers would be going unpoliced and no-one would be protected.’
Mr Whitworth’s partner, Ricky Waumsley, said: ‘I believe it’s a mixture of everything – so, a bit of laziness, incompetence, lack of training.
‘But I absolutely stand by that they were being homophobic towards these four victims and making general assumptions that they’re all young, gay men who take drugs.’
Mr Walgate’s mother, Sarah Sak, said the jurors’ conclusion is a ‘massive victory’ but she is ‘disappointed’ they were not allowed to consider prejudice.
She said: ‘If Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel and Jack had been girls found in such close proximity there would have been an outcry. There would have been a lot more investigation – and there just wasn’t.’
Mr Taylor’s sister Donna called on the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC) to ‘rip up’ its report and reopen the investigation into the officers involved.
She said she feels strongly about the issue of homophobia, which the coroner had ruled the jury could not make a finding on for legal reasons.
Ms Taylor said: ‘Every one of the boys was not treated like individual humans and we have said that they were discriminated against from the very beginning.
‘The way they were seen as a druggie, homeless, gay. It’s not acceptable.’
Mrs Sak called for the police watchdog to reopen its investigation and for some police officers to be sacked.
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who raised his concern about a serial killer after the first three deaths in 2014, criticised the police for failing to engage with the LGBT community and follow their own guidance.
He said: ‘Evidence given at the Stephen Port inquest revealed the police to be incompetent, negligent, unprofessional and homophobic.
‘Every gay person who expressed concerns about the deaths was ignored, dismissed and treated with contempt, even the partner of one of the victims.
‘That’s institutional homophobia. The officers involved must face disciplinary action.’
The stepmother of Daniel Whitworth, the youngest victim of Stephen Port, sobbed as she heard inquest evidence laying police failings bare.
Amanda Whitworth called it ‘a huge tragedy’ that three of the four men Port killed would still be alive had police properly investigated the first death.
Porn-obsessed loner Port murdered fashion student Anthony Walgate before claiming the lives of Gabriel Kovari, Mrs Whitworth’s stepson Daniel and Jack Taylor.
Mrs Whitworth said she had been left sobbing at times listening to evidence in the inquests into the men’s deaths, held at Barking Town Hall.
‘We’re still in shock, really, that we’ve seen what we’ve seen over these weeks,’ she said. ‘I’m still trying to process what we’ve seen.
‘It’s been very hurtful at times. We’ve felt angry enough at times to where, even though we’ve been in Barking, we’ve stayed upstairs and watched it in the family room because you just can’t trust yourself not to get angry in the courtroom.
‘So, we’ve been upstairs and that’s resulted in tears. Sometimes I’ve just sat up there and sobbed.’
Mrs Whitworth went on: ‘You find out the real detail of everything.
STEPHEN PORT VICTIMS – WHAT HAPPENED IN EACH CASE?
Stephen Port murdered four young men during a 16-month period between 2014 and 2015, luring them to his one-bed flat in Barking before fatally plying them with date-rape drug GHB and then dumping their bodies nearby.
Port was initially arrested days after he killed his first victim, but was not charged with murder until after he struck for a fourth time.
Police said they were inexperienced to deal with such cases and were struggling with a large workload at the time of the deaths.
Here is what happened in each investigation:
Anthony Walgate, June 19 2014
It was Port himself who called 999 to report ‘finding’ Mr Walgate unconscious outside his flat, although he later admitted dumping his body after the pair met for sex. He killed three men by the time he was jailed in March 2015 for perverting the course of justice in the Walgate case.
Fashion-conscious Mr Walgate was found with his underpants on back to front and inside out, but police said this was ‘unusual, not necessarily suspicious or sinister’.
Investigators at the scene were not told of a previous allegation of rape against Port on the police national computer from 2012, who was traced as being the person who called 999 to report the body.
In fact, police only checked the national database for Mr Walgate, not Port.
Another officer deduced there was ‘nothing to suggest the victim had been assaulted’, despite bruising under Mr Walgate’s arms, while sex swabs taken from his body were not submitted for DNA testing.
Perhaps most crucially, police failed to submit a laptop belonging to Port for forensic analysis for 10 months after it was seized in the wake of Mr Walgate’s death, and then missed repeated searches for drug rape videos contained on the device.
The Crown Prosecution Service was also not given information that Port was a suspected sex offender when they ruled out a homicide charge over Mr Walgate’s death.
Police soon knew that Port had lied to them from the outset, eventually charging him with perverting the course of justice. But they did not follow up information he volunteered during his initial interviews about his previous involvement with police on suspicion of sexual assault.
Requests from the local police officers for the Met’s specialist murder investigation team to take over the investigation were repeatedly dismissed, meaning inexperienced officers were in charge of the case.
Two of Mr Walgate’s friends were convinced his death was suspicious and aired their concerns, but said they believed police assumed he had overdosed on drugs simply because he was a gay sex worker.
Sarah Sak, the victim’s mother, told police she was convinced it was ‘murder’, but said police told her ‘it was probably drugs’.
Gabriel Kovari, August 28 2014
Aspiring English teacher Mr Kovari was found slumped in a graveyard near Port’s home. But the scene was not declared suspicious, so his body was not subjected to a forensic post-mortem examination.
His clothing was not seized and so was not analysed, and no samples were taken from his body.
Police did not follow up leads to trace Mr Kovari’s friend, Karl Kamgdon, who Mr Kovari sent pictures to from inside Port’s flat when he arrived there, and was the last person he spoke to.
John Pape, Mr Kovari’s friend, effectively turned detective to find the victim’s boyfriend in Spain, Thierry Amodio, who had been contacted by Port masquerading as another man.
Both men supplied the police with information which would have led them to the serial killer, but they were repeatedly ignored.
A family liaison officer assigned to the Kovari case failed to contact the victims’ loved ones at all, and even referred to him as being from Lithuania rather than Slovakia.
Daniel Whitworth, September 20 2014
Detectives failed to carry out key forensic tests including on the bed sheet on which chef Mr Whitworth was found, his clothes, so-called sex swabs taken from his body, and the drugs bottle planted on him – all of which carried Port’s DNA or fingerprints.
Perhaps most crucially, the ‘suicide note’ planted by Port on Mr Whitworth’s body taking responsibility for Mr Kovari’s death appeared to be taken on face value by police.
Only a section of its contents was sent to Mr Whitworth’s family, with disputes over whether his father was able to identify the handwriting as that of his son.
The note was not shown to Mr Whitworth’s long-term boyfriend, Ricky Waumsley, for a year, and he said he felt cut out of the investigation entirely.
He later raised concerns about the ‘really impersonal’ nature of the content, that it did not mention any family members and that he could not be sure it was his partner’s handwriting.
The note also contained a veiled reference to Port, asking police not to ‘blame the guy I was with last night’ in case the investigation eventually linked the victim with the serial killer. However, police arriving on the scene thought ‘the guy’ was a homeless man sleeping in the graveyard where Mr Whitworth was found.
It was much later that a handwriting expert concluded the script matched Port’s while the notepad on which the suicide note was written was recovered from Port’s address.
There was no evidence Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth had ever met or contacted each other.
Police also failed to obtain full phone data that would have shown Mr Whitworth was not in Barking on the night of Mr Kovari’s death – creating an inaccuracy with the suicide note that claimed Mr Whitworth killed Mr Kovari.
Mr Walgate also showed signs of bruising under the arms consistent with being moved or carried before or after his death.
Bizarrely, dog walker Barbara Denham, who discovered Mr Kovari’s body, was also the first on the scene for Mr Whitworth’s death.
She told police: ‘I was the same woman that found the other body a few weeks ago … I found another young boy.’
Jack Taylor, September 14 2015
The final death was not linked to the previous three until a chance discovery nearly a month later – this was despite similarities that all four victims were young, gay men, with no links to the area, who were found dumped in public, within a short distance of each other.
Mr Taylor’s family shared with police their concerns that the death might be linked to others in the area, as did the coroner.
In fact, his sisters kept notes of their own investigations, establishing similarities between the four deaths, referencing GHB and identifying Port’s address in Cooke Street.
The family were particularly suspicious that Mr Taylor – who wanted to become a policeman and was said to be resolutely anti-drugs – had apparently taken something on the night he died.
But their suggestions were dismissed by police who said there was ‘no reason to think they are connected’.
It was only when a detective working on the Walgate investigation chanced upon a print-out of a CCTV still of Mr Taylor with a ‘mystery man’ on the night he was last seen alive that he recognised him as Port and made the link with Mr Walgate’s death.
Another officer then linked them with the Kovari and Whitworth investigations.
Met police assistant commissioner Helen Ball speaks to the media after the conclusion Barking Town Hall today after verdict
The families of Stephen Port’s victims at Barking Town Hall in east London, after an inquest jury found that police failures in the investigation into the death of Port’s first victim Anthony Walgate ‘probably’ contributed to the death of three further young men
Pictured: Stephen Port now 46, was handed a whole-life order in 2016 for the murders of Anthony Walgate, 23, Mr Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Mr Taylor, 25
Pictured: The spot in the walled cemetery at St Margaret’s church, Barking, where Mr Kovari’s body was found – the body of Daniel Whitworth, 21, was also later found here
Victims’ families to sue Met over failings
The beleaguered Metropolitan Police is facing legal action over its bungled investigations into the deaths of the victims of Stephen Port.
Failures by a string of detectives saw basic evidence-gathering opportunities missed and a serial killer left free to carry out a series of murders as well as drug and sexually assault more than a dozen other men.
Seventeen officers were investigated by watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), and nine were found to have performance failings.
None of the nine were disciplined or lost their jobs, and five have since been promoted.
Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball apologised to the loved ones of all the victims over the way the investigations were mishandled.
She said: ‘Our thoughts are with everybody who loved Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor, we are so sorry for their loss.
‘And we’re also deeply sorry, I want to give my own and the Met’s deepest apologies that there were failings in the police response to the murders.
‘It has been clear, and we have said for a long time, that we didn’t respond as we should have done.
‘All those who loved Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel and Jack expected a professional and a thorough police investigation into their deaths.
‘And it’s hugely disappointing to me and everybody at the Met, that that didn’t happen.’
Civil claims have been lodged by relatives against the force, but no further details have yet been made available.
‘What we suspected to be true, which was that these three boys could have been still walking around today had they investigated Anthony’s (death) properly.
‘They’re not and that is a huge tragedy.’
Loved ones of the four men have accused the Metropolitan Police of homophobia over the series of failings in its investigations into the deaths.
Mrs Whitworth said that officers had made assumptions that the victims had been to chemsex parties because they were gay and had drugs planted on them.
Referring to homophobia, she said: ‘There is an element of that there.
‘Whether they’re aware of it or not, it is there.
‘The boys were depersonalised. There’s lots of ingredients in this particular recipe, but that’s one of them.’
She and Daniel’s father both criticised the attitude of several of the officers who gave evidence at the inquests.
Mr Whitworth said: ‘Even right up to date now in these new inquests at Barking, still by the evidence they’ve given and their indifferent attitude and the evidence that’s ranged from mindless to indifferent and bordering on criminal in places really.
‘They’ve proved that they’re still unfit for duty.
‘Still, even now. They’ve no idea that they’ve got a case to answer.’
Referring to officers based in Barking, he said: ‘The fact remains that while they’re still on duty, the wider Met has got a problem, they are tarnished.
‘It’s a big blot on their reputation.’
Mrs Whitworth added: ‘We didn’t know what to expect from the inquest, but it really has been an eye opener.
‘With the way they’ve given evidence and the way some of them, well a lot of them, have just been a bit shoulder-shrugging.
‘I wasn’t expecting that.’
The Met police says that the nine officers who were identified as having performance failings were properly dealt with by their managers.
‘The six who remain with the Met today have been checked again recently and are meeting expected standards.
Stephen Port – The quiet, porn-obsessed loner who turned into a serial killer
The softly spoken bus depot chef had a ‘strange’ obsession with children’s toys and rarely socialised, instead spending his free time in his flat on his laptop or internet dating, rarely going too far from work and home.
But the reality, unbeknownst to the few who knew him, was that the 6ft 5in former escort was obsessed with drug-rape pornography, and lured unwitting, boyish-looking, gay men to his flat through websites such as Grindr before fatally plying them with GHB, sexually abusing them, and disposing of their young corpses.
Port then weaved an unending web of lies to cover his tracks and muddy the waters, allowing him to strike again and again until police finally pieced together Port’s murderous involvement in the four deaths.
Evidence at the inquests suggested Port had more aliases, used to spread rumours in the aftermath of each murder, than he had genuine friends.
Port, originally from Dagenham, trained as a chef after dropping out of art school.
He lived at home until his early 30s, having come out as gay, and part-bought a one-bedroom flat in Barking that would eventually become the grim theatre for his depraved acts.
As he approached his 40s, but with his desire for much younger male company unrelenting, the balding Port began to wear a floppy blond hair-piece atop his athletic frame in an effort to persuade people he was closer to their age.
Port became a GHB user towards the end of 2013, and by then had come to the attention of police for allegedly drugging and raping a man on New Year’s Eve.
He was said to have had a ‘revolving door of boys coming and going’ at his flat, some of whom he boasted he would wed, only for them to disappear out of his life as quickly as they arrived.
Indeed, one of his few friends, neighbour Ryan Edwards, remarked how Port had a ‘voracious appetite’ for meeting ‘very young’ men.
But he later became so concerned that Port was spending time with ‘vulnerable’ boys that he considered he might have ‘paedophile tendencies’.
Mr Edwards said he also had concerns about Port’s drug use, but was reassured by the predator that his interest in young males was legal, and that the drugs were for personal use only.
The truth, as police would later come to discover, was far more sinister.
Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball apologised on behalf of the Met but denied the force was homophobic.
She said: ‘We don’t see institutional homophobia.
‘We don’t see homophobia on the part of our officers.
‘We do see all sorts of errors in the investigation, which came together in a truly dreadful way.’
Port’s killing spree began when he hired fashion student Mr Walgate, from Hull, as an escort.
Instead, Port killed him, dragged his body outside and called 999 anonymously, claiming to have found him collapsed as he was passing.
Requests were rejected for a specialist homicide team to take over the case, which was instead left in the hands of borough officers.
Port was swiftly identified as the caller but in a police interview concocted another web of lies.
A basic check on the police national database would have flagged up Port as a suspected rapist and his involvement in a suspicious incident at Barking station days before.
Port’s laptop computer, which would have revealed his obsession with rape pornography, was not examined for many months.
Port was charged with perverting the course of justice and given bail.
It meant he was free to lure Slovakian Mr Kovari to his flat on the false promise of a room to rent.
Port dumped his body in St Margaret’s churchyard, where a dog walker made the grim discovery in August 2014.
Three weeks later, the same dog walker found Kent chef Mr Whitworth in almost exactly the same spot.
Port planted a fake suicide note on his body suggesting Mr Whitworth had accidentally killed Mr Kovari.
Port was later jailed for perverting the course of justice, but was freed to kill Mr Taylor. Mr Taylor’s sisters launched their own investigation and pushed officers to do more.
Leni Morris, CEO of LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop, said today: ‘It’s a common experience for members of the LGBT+ community to have been subjected to some form of anti-LGBT+ prejudice as part of our interaction with an institution, whether that’s in healthcare, education, or a police response.
‘In the case of the Stephen Port investigation, it’s clear to see that there were assumptions made about the victims – because they were young, gay men – around hook-up apps, drug use, and the disregard of evidence from friends and family.
‘All of this amounted to an unacceptable delay in the connection of the victims, the investigation of the case, and ultimately the identification of the perpetrator.
‘We need to get out of a victim-blaming narrative around all forms of sexual violence, and get to a place where we ensure all victims receive a fair and equal response, whoever they are.’
Free to kill for two years: Port’s escape over first murder meant he could commit three more killings
2014
– June 4: Port is spoken to by British Transport Police at Barking station after he is found rooting through an ‘extremely ill’ man’s bag. In 2012, he had been investigated briefly for drugging and raping a man on New Year’s Eve.
– June 13: Port initiates contact with Anthony Mr Walgate. He asks: ‘Hi, are you free to come to Barking Tuesday night for an overnight? Please send some pics.’
– June 17: Mr Walgate goes to Barking train station to meet Port.
– June 19: Mr Walgate is ‘found’ slumped outside Port’s house in Cooke Street, Barking, shortly after 4am. Port calls the emergency services saying he found the body outside.
– June 26: Port is arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. His laptop is seized by police investigating Mr Walgate’s death, having established the link with Port. But for more than 10 months, the device is left untouched.
– August 18: Port contacts Daniel Whitworth for the first time, on a website called Fitlads, and asks to see photographs of him. The pair communicate intermittently.
– August 22: Slovakian national Gabriel Kovari moves in with Port, having previously rented a room in Deptford for a short time after his arrival in the UK that summer.
August 25 – Mr Kovari is last seen alive, accompanying Port to visit a neighbour, Ryan Edwards. While Port is in the bathroom, Mr Kovari tells Mr Edwards: ‘Stephen is not a nice man, he is not the person you think he is.’
– August 28: Mr Kovari’s body is found in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church, Barking, by dog walker Barbara Denham.
– September 18: Mr Whitworth messages his long-term boyfriend Ricky Waumsley to say he will be leaving work at 5pm. However he leaves at 3pm and tells a colleague he was going to meet friends in Barking. He is not seen or heard from again.
– September 20: Mr Whitworth’s body is found slumped in the same graveyard, again it is discovered by Mrs Denham. Police find a ‘suicide note’ on his body, accepting responsibility for Mr Kovari’s death. The note is later found to have been written by Port.
2015
– March 23: Port is jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice in relation to the Walgate investigation.
– April 28: Port’s laptop – seized in the aftermath of Mr Walgate’s death – is finally received by scientists for analysis.
– June 4: Port is released from prison having served just over three months.
– June 19: Inquests into the deaths of Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth record open conclusions.
– July 15: Detective Constable David Parish prepares a report based on the analysis of Port’s laptop – but Mr Parish summarises Port’s lifestyle rather than his obsession with drug-rape pornography and the searches conducted up to the moment he meets his victims.
– September 13: Jack Taylor takes a taxi to Barking station, where CCTV footage shows him meeting an unidentified man in the early hours of the morning.
– September 14: Mr Taylor’s body is found in grounds next to the church.
– October 14: Mr Parish, who was working on the Walgate investigation, by chance comes across a print out of the Taylor CCTV footage and recognises the mystery man as 6ft 5in Port.
– October 15: Port is arrested on suspicion of murder.
2016
– October 4: Port goes on trial.
– November 23: Port is convicted of 22 offences against 11 men, including the four murders, four rapes, 10 counts of administering a substance, and four sex assaults He is later handed a whole life tariff, meaning he will die behind bars.
