Stephen Port

Stephen John Port (born 22 February 1975) is an English serial killer and serial rapist. He has been convicted of the murders of four young men and multiple rapes and sexual assaults of several others. Port received a sentence of life imprisonment with a whole life order on 25 November 2016.

Early life Port was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. He came out as gay in his mid-twenties. then lived alone in a flat in Barking, London, Port also briefly appeared on an episode of the television show MasterChef. He was described as having an athletic appearance at the time of the murders due to regularly going to the gym. He was bald and disguised this in public by wearing a blond toupée. The hairpiece was professionally fastened and increased his confidence when meeting other men.

Victims Port met his victims via online gay and bisexual social networks and dating or hookup apps, The prosecution said that Port himself used a range of drugs, including amyl nitrite (poppers), Viagra, mephedrone, crystal methamphetamine, and GHB or GBL in its liquid form, but GHB was what he used to ply his victims: "postmortem examinations on the four young men who died revealed that each had died from a drug overdose featuring high levels of GHB".

The graveyard of St Margaret's Church, Barking: the bodies of three of the four murder victims were found here. Port contacted his first murder victim, 23-year-old Anthony Walgate, a fashion student who occasionally worked as an escort, on 17 June 2014 pretending to be a client. At Port's flat, Walgate was drugged with GHB and raped; he died after Port gave him a fatal overdose of the drug. The next day, Port placed Walgate's body outside the flat and made an anonymous call for an ambulance. Shortly before 8:00a.m., Walgate was pronounced dead.

Between August 2014 and September 2015, Port murdered three more men: Gabriel Kovari, 22, who had moved to London from Slovakia and had briefly lived with Port, Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend in Kent, who worked as a chef, and Jack Taylor, 25, who lived with his parents in Dagenham and worked as a forklift truck driver. The bodies of the second and third victims were found in the graveyard of the church of St Margaret of Antioch in Barking, by the same woman on separate occasions walking her dog; the last victim was found in the park adjacent to the graveyard.

Port used a number of Internet hook-up sites and apps as a means of initially contacting his victims, including Sleepyboy, Grindr, Hornet, Fitlads, Badoo, Gaydar, Flirt, DaddyHunt, PlanetRomeo, Manhunt, Slaveboys and CouchSurfing.

The families of Port's victims were given compensation by the Metropolitan Police over their handling of the investigation into the killings. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) re-investigated the Met over its initial handling of their cases.

Inquests The original inquests into the deaths returned open verdicts. Coroner Nadia Persaud said she had "some concerns surrounding Whitworth's death which have not been answered by the police investigation". Her statement continued: "most concerning are the findings by the pathologist of manual handling prior to his death" and noted that "the bed sheet that he was found wrapped in was not forensically analysed, and the bottle of GBL which was found near him was also not tested for fingerprints or DNA". A detective was asked why the bed sheet had not been tested.

On 23 November 2016, Port was convicted of the murders, assaults by penetration, and rapes of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, as well as rapes of three other men he drugged, and ten counts of administering a substance with intent, and four sexual assaults.

Commenting on the case, Malcolm McHaffie, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London, said:Over a period of three years the defendant committed a series of murders and serious sexual offences against young men. Port manipulated and controlled these men through the chilling and calculated use of the drug GHB, which he administered without their permission ... This was a technically challenging case, complicated by a significant amount of evidence taken from the numerous social media sites Port used.

At the Old Bailey on 25 November 2016, Mr Justice Openshaw sentenced Port to life imprisonment with a whole life order. The first three victims were initially thought not to have died in suspicious circumstances

The Metropolitan Police also reported in 2016 that they were re-examining 58 unexplained deaths involving date-rape drugs, although a spokeswoman said there was nothing to suggest that Port was linked to any of them.

Police identified Port as a "significant witness" subject to a rape allegation hours after his first victim was found dead.

In June 2022, the Independent Office of Police Conduct reopened investigations into the way the deaths were handled due to alleged "material flaws" in its previous investigation.

Gerald Matovu In 2019, Gerald Matovu, who was known to have supplied Port with the GHB used in the killings, was arrested and later convicted of the murder of actor and businessman Eric Michels. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 31 years. Using similar methods to Port, Matovu had targeted Michels on Grindr and had given him a fatal dose of GHB.

Aftermath In August 2018, it was revealed that Port had lodged an appeal against his murder convictions. In November 2018, it was announced that Port's appeal had been rejected.

In August 2020, in a Brazilian chat show programme, Que História é Essa, Porchat?, hosted by Fábio Porchat, an audience member named Rafael told his story of dating Port. Rafael had moved to London in 2012 at 19 years old, and had been working as a waiter when he met Port on a dating website. After they started dating, Rafael moved into Port's apartment, where they lived together for a little longer than a month. After they broke up, Rafael moved back to Brazil, where he got a different job and started another relationship. One day, he decided to search for Port's name online and found out about the murders through an article on BBC. Rafael said he first read the words “documentary”, “Stephen Port” and “serial killer”, and was interested since he thought Port had made a documentary on a serial killer, until he read it and realized what it was actually about. After he discovered the truth about Port, Rafael said that “looking back, there [were] a lot of strange things going on”. Another former partner of Port's also claimed to have broken up with Port due to his unusual behaviour.

Media portrayal In 2017, the BBC aired the documentary How Police Missed the Grindr Killer, which examined the botched investigation into Port's murders. In 2022, the Channel 4 documentary series Surviving a Serial Killer covered Port's crimes.

In January 2022, the BBC aired the drama thriller Four Lives, based on the investigation led by the families of Port's murder victims. The drama, written by Neil McKay and originally titled The Barking Murders, stars Stephen Merchant as Port, with Sheridan Smith and Jaime Winstone in supporting roles.