'˜Sick and twisted' serial killer Stephen Port will spend rest of his life in jail

The 41-year-old was found guilty of surreptitiously giving men he met on Grindr and other gay dating websites - including a Hull man - fatal doses of GHB so he could rape them while they were unconscious.

He was also convicted of a string of rapes and other sexual offences against seven more men who came forward after his arrest. Relatives of the victims cheered and clapped as Mr Justice Openshaw told an impassive Port that he would never be released.

A man in the public gallery shouted at Port: “I hope you die a long slow death.”

Outside court, relatives of Port’s final victim, who drove police to investigate the deaths, said justice had been done.

Jack Taylor’s sister Donna said: “We finally have justice for Jack and the other boys.

“A sick and twisted scumbag will never be able to hurt or destroy any other family’s life. Jack can finally rest in peace.”

The family are planning to sue the police for failing to properly investigate the earlier deaths of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari and Daniel Whitworth.

Mr Walgate. 23, originally from Hull and renting a room in Golders Green, north-west London, while studying fashion at Middlesex University, was Port’s first victim.

All four deaths over 15 months bore striking similarities, but police failed to make the connection until the Taylors demanded answers.

Port had dumped the bodies in or near a graveyard within 500 metres of his flat in Barking, east London, and embarked on an elaborate cover-up, which involved planting drugs on the bodies.

He also disposed of their mobile phones, repeatedly lied to police and planted a fake suicide note in the hand of Mr Whitworth, taking the blame for the death of Mr Kovari.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Openshaw said it was for the inquiry into the police handling of the case to establish whether officers were right to take Mr Walgate’s death “at face value” as they did.

On the death of Port’s fourth victim 15 months later, he said: “It is not for me to say whether the seeming bizarre coincidence of these three gay young men being found dead so close together might have given rise to suspicions that these deaths were not the result of ordinary self-administered drug overdoses, but that is how their deaths, including Jack Taylor’s death, was treated at the time.

“The competence and adequacy of the investigation will later be examined by others, as I have said.”

He added that Port’s attempt to cover up two murders with a fake suicide note was “wicked and monstrous”.

In mitigation, David Etheridge QC, said that on the jury verdicts, in this period of his life, Port “descended into a vortex” in which drug taking fuelled his private life with satisfaction of his sexual desire.

Following Port’s conviction on Wednesday, Commander Stuart Cundy said he had written a letter of condolence to the loved ones of the young men and apologised for “missed opportunities”.