Four Lives: BBC show on 'Grindr Killer' Stephen Port shows 'massive institutional failure' in investigation

Port, played by Stephen Merchant, drugged and raped four men before dumping their bodies near his home in Barking, east London.

Known as the Grindr Killer, he used the gay dating app to target young men, including Hull's Anthony Walgate, who was his first victim.

Neil McKay, who co-created the drama with Jeff Pope, said he wanted to tell the story of the victims and their families to highlight the “massive implications” for policing.

He said: “There has been some news attention but not an enormous amount. I felt it was unappreciated and unexplored and I think that is because it wasn’t really a story about a few incompetent coppers or a few lazy coppers.

“It is basically a massive institutional failure by the Metropolitan Police where one compartment didn’t talk to another. And these four murders were not investigated properly and three of them wouldn’t have happened if the first had been investigated properly. So it is a smallish story in one sense but it (has) massive implications for our policing.”

Actress Jaime Winstone, who plays Donna Taylor, the sister of victim Jack Taylor, said the programme highlights how unprotected members of the LGBTQ community are.

The three-part factual drama is told from the point of view of the victims’ families, focusing on their fight to uncover the truth about what happened to their sons and brothers.

In December, inquest jurors found the shambolic inquiries probably contributed to the deaths of three of Port’s victims: Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Mr Taylor.

Sheridan Smith appears in the series as Sarah Sak, the mother of Port’s first victim Anthony Walgate of Hull.

Four Lives launched last night on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.