Mother of Hull fashion student murdered by serial killer Stephen Port says 'police mistakes cost lives'

The body of fashion student Anthony Walgate, 23, who grew up in Hull and was living and studying in London, was dumped outside Port’s flat in Barking in June 2014.

Port spun a web of lies to police, whose failure to properly investigate allowed him to carry on attacking young gay men for 16 months.

He killed Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, before being caught and convicted of the murders.

After the conclusion of inquests into their deaths today Mr Walgate’s mother Sarah Sak said confirmation that police mistakes likely contributed to the later deaths was “massive”.

She told the PA news agency: “For them, the jury, to come back and say how they messed up Anthony’s investigation and had they have done it right it would have saved the other three boys, I think that will be for us a massive victory. It will prove we were right all this time.”

Early on, police wrongly decided that her son was a “druggie student”, Mrs Sak claimed.

She said: “It did not matter what his family, his friends, anybody said, I think right from the very beginning they made their minds up and that was it.”

The investigation was “shut down” quickly without proper checks on Port’s background or attempts to verify his fake account.

There was an overall lack of “basic policing”, she said: “Had that been done, three lads would not have died. Plain and simple as that.”

Recalling her feelings at the time, she said: “I found it incredibly frustrating and upsetting.

“I kept speaking to the liaison officer saying ‘have you looked at his laptop, have you looked for his phone - he’s a young lad, he would not go anywhere without his phone. Have you spoken to his friends?’

“I literally got shut down every single time with ‘it’s not suspicious, it’s unexplained’.

“I just felt like screaming because nobody would listen.

“What really scares me more than anything is if I had not been so vocal - and the Taylor family - he would just have gone on and on.

“He was literally playing Russian roulette with these young gay lads. Some died and some did not and he would have carried on and on.”

The evidence before the jury exposed “complete and utter chaos in the police force”, she said.

“It’s like you cannot just say it was that failing, or that was not done, there is so much of it.”

She also criticised the leadership, saying: “It was just like everybody doing their own little bit but not doing enough, not joining the dots, and not speaking to each other.”

Mrs Sak said she was “disappointed” when the coroner ruled out underlying prejudice.

Even though officers denied they were biased, Mrs Sak insisted: “I think it was the fact he was a young gay lad.

“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.

“I genuinely do believe part of that was homophobia.”

She called for the police watchdog to reopen its investigation.

Some officers deserved to be sacked for “mindblowing” failings, such as not contacting Mr Kovari’s bereaved family, she said.

By contrast, the team who eventually brought Port to justice was the “gold standard”.

Even though Mr Walgate was the first to be murdered, Mrs Sak believes his death could have been avoided if others came forward to report abuse earlier.

More needs to be done to engage with the LGBT community and make it easier for male victims to report attacks, she said.

She added: “I still think there are some of his (Port’s) rape victims out there that have not come forward. He really, literally, thought he was invincible.”

Throughout the inquest, the victims’ families supported each other, sometimes with a simple squeeze of the hand.

Mrs Sak revealed they would also switch seats in Barking Town Hall so they could be seen on the video screens as particular officers gave evidence.

Even though the inquest was delayed due to the Covid-19 crisis, it was worth waiting to have a jury of “everyday normal people” to hear the case, she said.

Summing up her experience of the inquest, Mrs Sak said: “At some points it made me quite angry and at other points it was quite upsetting and it still does not change the fact that he was my son and that’s who he was.”

She wants him to be remembered as the “young crazy fashion designer that he always thought he was going be”.

Mrs Sak said: “He always said he would get his name up in lights, he would be famous.

“Every time he wanted to borrow money he used to say ‘I’ll pay you back when I’m famous, don’t worry, when I’m there everybody will know my name’.

“The thing is they do now - but for the wrong reasons.”

Police mistakes “probably” contributed to the deaths of Stephen Port’s victims, an inquest jury has found.

Officers in Barking, east London, missed repeated opportunities to catch sexual predator Port after he plied first victim Anthony Walgate with a fatal dose of date-rape drug GHB and dumped his body.

Port struck three more times before he was caught, killing each of his young, gay, male victims in near-identical circumstances, with police failing to link him to the deaths despite detective work carried out by the victims’ family and friends that would lead them to the culprit.

Jurors at the inquests into the deaths of Mr Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and 25-year-old Jack Taylor, concluded that police failings “probably” contributed to the deaths of victims, all of whom were unlawfully killed.

In written conclusions, the jury acknowledged officers’ “heavy workload” but said there were failures that “cannot be overlooked”.

Acknowledging the root-and-branch nature of the mistakes, which originated from the Walgate investigation, the jury said: “We believe there were fundamental failures in these investigations, which were at a basic level.”

The coroner, Sarah Munro QC, said she would write a prevention of future deaths report, to be published in the new year, adding: “These inquests, on any view, have raised a number of serious concerns.”

Addressing the victims’ loved ones at the end of the 50-minute hearing, the coroner added: “May I also express the hope that you have finally been listened to, and you have the answers to, if not all then, some of your questions.”

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.

The coroner 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 told the PA news agency: “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.”

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 told PA: “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.”

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.

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.

Loved ones of the four men have accused the Met of homophobia in the way that it bungled the investigations, but this has been denied by force chiefs.

Senior staff admit there was a lack of knowledge about the use of GHB as a weapon, and that confidence in the force among the LGBT community has been rocked, but would not accept that officers were prejudiced against gay men.

Ms Ball said: “I don’t think the Met is institutionally homophobic. I do think we had failings in our investigations.

“I do trust that those failings would not be repeated today. And certainly, every single one of us here and many people beyond us, are here to make sure that they wouldn’t happen again.”

She added: “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.”

The inquest jury heard weeks of evidence during which a string of officers outlined the basic actions they had failed to take in investigating the four men’s deaths.

In an interview with the PA news agency, Ms Ball said: “There were errors made by our officers not showing sufficient professional curiosity, that staple of good investigation that you get behind the facts as they seem to be presenting to you and you examine them really closely.

“And also, there’s some inquiries that should have been made and weren’t made at all, some weren’t made as quickly as they needed to be. We’ve made great changes in both areas to make sure this sort of thing could not happen again.”

Met chiefs have outlined a number of changes that have been made since the force failed to stop Port’s killing spree.

In the local area around Barking there are more detectives; there are six LGBT officers who advise on hate crime investigations; they hold regular meetings with community representatives and charities; and an LGBT independent advisory group has been set up to scrutinise how the area is policed.

The local and specialist investigation teams have been restructured so that they work more closely together, each local area has an intelligence team with access to key police databases, and there are more trained senior investigating officers – in 2015 the Met had 40, now they have 135.

The Deputy Mayor of London Sophie Linden has also written to watchdog Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services to ask for a review to make sure sufficient changes have been made in investigative practices.