00:00:04
♪♪ -On September the 14th,
2015, 25-year-old Jack Taylor was found dead
in the graveyard
00:00:15
of St. Margaret's Church
in East London. Jack's devastated family
immediately suspected
00:00:22
he had been murdered. -We'd said to each other that, "If that's where
Jack has been found,
00:00:27
someone has put him there because Jack would never go
and sit anywhere like that.
00:00:32
He's not like that." -And their suspicions
were right. An active serial killer
was on the loose in London.
00:00:40
-Young men in their 20s had
been murdered in East London, and their bodies had been found
in unexplained circumstances,
00:00:49
all within a few hundred
yards of each other. -The killer was a 40-year-old
loner named Stephen Port.
00:00:55
He'd lured four young men
to their deaths using online dating sites and went to great lengths
to cover up his crimes.
00:01:03
-I suspect he would've gone on
killing without any hesitation for as long as he could've
got away with it.
00:01:10
-Stephen Port had been unmasked as one of the world's
most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
00:01:36
It was a crime that shocked
the nation and left Britain's LGBT
community devastated.
00:01:44
In 2014, the 40-year-old
Stephen Port killed three young men
in Barking, East London.
00:01:51
All the bodies had been found
within yards of one another, and it was initially thought
that no foul play was involved,
00:01:58
but the discovery of a fourth
victim in September 2015, 25-year-old Jack Taylor,
led the police to the killer
00:02:07
who had poisoned
his trusting victims. On the 13th of September, 2015, Jack had arranged to meet a man
he'd been chatting to
00:02:17
on the gay-dating
mobile phone app Grindr. He was never seen alive again. It was a day that his family
would never forget.
00:02:29
-We know that Jack hadn't come
home, so we was all worried, and we was all trying to get
ahold of him, wasn't we,
00:02:34
and chasing up
his friends and stuff. We'd always hear from Jack. He'd always let my mom and dad
know if he wasn't coming home
00:02:40
or...
And he hadn't. -Two days after reporting
Jack missing, the family received
the news they'd been dreading.
00:02:48
-Mom had called me to say
that Jack still wasn't home, and then all of a sudden,
a police car pulled up outside,
00:02:57
and then the next thing,
she said that the officers
were coming towards our door,
00:03:02
and all I've heard is,
"Are you Jack's mom and dad?" and, obviously, they said,
"Yeah," and the officer said,
00:03:11
"Jack is dead,"
and you just heard Mom scream. More of a scene, now,
well, that scream is.
00:03:19
-Jack's body had been
discovered propped up against the outside wall
of the graveyard
00:03:24
of St. Margaret's Church
in Barking, East London. Police found drug paraphernalia,
00:03:30
including a small bottle
containing the party drug GHB. He had died from an overdose.
00:03:37
However, Jack's family
was certain that his death
wasn't self-inflicted. -Jack was very antidrugs,
so that didn't make sense.
00:03:47
You just get this gut feeling
that something is not right. -The family were determined
to find out the truth,
00:03:53
and a fortnight
after Jack's death, the police showed them
some revealing footage.
00:03:58
-And we found out
two weeks later that they had seen
CCTV footage of Jack meeting a man
at Barking Station,
00:04:06
which we felt was very bizarre
and very strange, and at that time,
in the moment as well,
00:04:11
we just thought,
"Well, who's this man?" -The man in question was a
local chef named Stephen Port.
00:04:18
The story of this elusive killer
begins over 40 years ago. -Port was born in
Southend-on-Sea
00:04:25
in February 1975, left Southend by the age
of about one, and his parents moved
to Dagenham in Essex.
00:04:34
-He seems to have come
from quite an average working-class background,
which was, to all intents
00:04:38
and purposes, relatively
normal from the outside. He seemed to be a boy
who was quite quiet.
00:04:44
He was quite awkward. He wasn't somebody who was
a great conversationalist, and it's been said
that when he was at school,
00:04:51
some people thought
that he was deaf because he was that detached and that disengaged
from other people,
00:04:57
so he's always been very insular
and very introverted. -After taking his GCSEs,
Port enrolled into art college
00:05:05
but had to drop out because his
family couldn't afford the fees. -He had to basically choose
something else,
00:05:11
so he went on
and trained to be a chef, so I think he's always got
that sense of frustration
00:05:17
and that sense of entitlement. I think he has this idea that,
"I have this talent.
00:05:22
I have this skill. I should be able
to develop that, and I'm not able to
because of other people,"
00:05:28
so I think that stays with him
for quite a long time. -Age 30, Port moved out of his
family home
00:05:34
and into a flat on Cooke Street
in nearby Barking, East London. One of his new neighbors
was Ryan Edwards.
00:05:42
-I first Stephen when I moved
to Barking and in April 2005, and I lived in
a first-floor flat,
00:05:50
and it overlooked where
I would discover Stephen lived. As a young gay man myself,
00:05:56
I didn't know anyone gay
in the local area, so it didn't take me long,
really, to introduce myself to him.
00:06:03
He was a very tall man, sort of
a towering physical presence, and he actually walked
with almost like a bit
00:06:10
of a lumber-stroke lurch. He was very much
a man of few words, so when he used to talk to me,
00:06:16
he often didn't
give eye contact. He would bow his head, and he would often give one
or two-word answers.
00:06:22
-And it wasn't long before Ryan
started to notice some strange behavior
from his new neighbor.
00:06:29
-I think there was something
stunted about Stephen's mental development. I remember something
a bit peculiar.
00:06:34
I was going to host a party. I was just putting
some rubbish out, and there was a toy truck there,
00:06:39
and I thought,
"Stephen will love that," and I was with a friend
at the time. He said, "You can't give
a grown man a toy truck,"
00:06:45
and I was like,
"Yeah, but, you know, from what I knew of Stephen,
"I think he'd really like it."
00:06:49
And so at the party,
I gave him the toy truck, and lo and behold, he was
absolutely overjoyed with it.
00:06:55
He then sat cross-legged
on the floor and starting pushing
the toy truck up and down,
00:06:59
and he was obviously
in his complete own world while the party
was going on around him.
00:07:03
-He retains quite a childlike
quality to him, even as an adult,
so he collects children's toys,
00:07:09
and he plays with those toys
almost like he's a child, so the idea of the judgment
of other people
00:07:16
and what others would think
of his behavior really doesn't impact upon him
in the same way
00:07:20
that it does the rest of us. -Port's awkward demeanor
made it difficult for him to meet men in person.
00:07:27
He was far more comfortable
with online dating. -I think Stephen Port
was somebody
00:07:32
who did lack
those basic social skills, so I think he'd find
social media incredibly attractive.
00:07:39
He's able to spend time thinking
about the types of things to say on his profile,
00:07:44
and he'd have real trouble
meeting people in a face-to-face situation, but the Internet removes
a lot of that.
00:07:50
-This was his form
of communication. He wasn't a man, for example, to go out to the pub
or to the bar at night.
00:07:58
This was a man who lived
in his own fantasy, created with the help
of his Internet connection.
00:08:06
Port created several profiles
across many different sites. -He claimed to have been
in the military.
00:08:12
He claimed to have graduated
from Oxford University. At other times, he'd claimed
00:08:17
that he was
a special-needs teacher, and that's the thing
about social media. It enables us to present
a whole range
00:08:24
of different identities
to people, and I think what he was
essentially doing here
00:08:29
was trying on
different identities because the self
that you create on social media,
00:08:34
you can be whatever
you want to be. -Stephen's rate of going through
and meeting new guys
00:08:40
was prolific,
so it was quite, you know, not unusual that there'd be
a new guy every day.
00:08:47
Even on the first time
he'd met them, he would then announce to me,
via text message normally,
00:08:52
that, you know, "I've got a new
boyfriend. Come around and meet my new boyfriend."
00:08:55
-The Stephen Port that he
presented to the world was somebody who looked
younger than he was.
00:09:00
He would often use pictures
that were taken many years ago. He doesn't feel that
the real Stephen Port
00:09:06
is actually enough to actually
get the attention of others and to have others
interested in him.
00:09:13
-It was clear that Port
was attracted to younger men. -There's a really clear reason
for that because here,
00:09:20
we've got somebody who really
has a lot of problems relating to people
of his own age,
00:09:25
so I think he's always going to
be attracted towards people who look younger because he
feels like he's more in control.
00:09:32
-He was a kind
of praying mantis figure, quite thin, pale-faced, uncomfortable
in lots of company,
00:09:44
much happier when he was alone
with the young men. He had an appetite
for vulnerable young men,
00:09:55
certainly younger than 25, and he was interested
in control. It's about the power, and for
Port, it was all about power.
00:10:11
-Stephen would quite
often deposit the boyfriend in my company, and so I would end up
getting to know these guys,
00:10:19
and they rarely had a good word
to say about Stephen. They would often say that
he was mentally abusing them.
00:10:27
He was very argumentative,
very manipulative, very controlling. Though what was strange
really is that
00:10:33
if Stephen was such
an awful person, they were still sticking around,
and so again,
00:10:39
was there some sort of control that Stephen was exhibiting
to make these guys, you know,
not run for the hills?
00:10:46
-As well as the volatile
relationships, Port had become immersed in a world
of drug-fueled sex parties,
00:10:53
but his wild behavior
was beginning to spill over into his everyday life. -He led me through to the
kitchen and the living room,
00:11:02
and I was absolutely taken aback when I looked
at the coffee table, and the whole circumference
was filled up
00:11:08
with a clear plastic box, and in that container
were lots and lots and lots of vials
of clear liquid
00:11:14
and bags of white powder. I obviously quickly realized that this is
a huge amount of drugs,
00:11:20
so then that's when I pretty
much took a step back, and that was one
of the last times
00:11:24
I actually went around
Stephen's flat. -There was nobody there putting
the brakes on his behavior.
00:11:28
There was nobody
holding him accountable for what he was doing,
so when one relationship ended,
00:11:33
another one would begin, and it would be a little bit
more aggressive, a little bit more violent
than the one before.
00:11:40
-Stephen Port's violent behavior
would only intensify as his appetite
for young men
00:11:45
and drug abuse would
spiral out of control. He was living alone in a flat
in Barking, East London,
00:11:52
and his Internet search history was becoming more
and more perverse. -He was trying to satisfy
his desire
00:12:01
by searching the Internet,
which a lot of people do. The difference, that some
of them get satisfied
00:12:06
only by looking at pictures and
watching films on the Internet, and some of them,
that will not be enough.
00:12:12
They will want to move on,
which, unfortunately, was this case. -And it wasn't long before
he would act
00:12:18
upon these depraved urges. On the 15th of June, 2014,
Port contacted 23-year-old
00:12:25
fashion student Anthony Walgate
through a mail-escorting site. He offered to pay Anthony £800
to spend the night,
00:12:34
and they agreed to meet 2 days
later on the 17th of June. As a precaution, Anthony texted
friends about the arrangement,
00:12:43
but just 2 days later,
he was found dead outside Port's flat. The police received
an anonymous 999 call
00:12:51
from Stephen Port himself. When the paramedics arrived, Anthony was found slumped
against a wall
00:13:25
with his bag beside him. Inside was a bottle
of the date-rape drug GHB. He had died of an overdose.
00:13:34
-Walgate had turned up
at his flat, and there is no doubt
that he was rapidly subdued
00:13:42
with the use of GHB
and other drugs. Now, there is an argument
which suggests that perhaps something
went just a bit too far,
00:13:51
as far as Walgate was concerned and that the drugs
had too great an effect. It could be that he got
the dose wrong.
00:13:59
It could be that
this was something new that he was trying out. We don't know,
but what we do know
00:14:07
is that Anthony Walgate died
at Port's hands. -Port told the police that he
found Anthony outside his flat
00:14:17
on his way home from work. His death wasn't treated
as suspicious. It was devastating news
for his mother, Sarah Sak.
00:14:27
-When I had this made,
it says on it, "Anthony. It's all about me,"
because to me, that was...
00:14:34
That summed up Anthony.
It was always all about him. I've always said to friends
and family,
00:14:39
"Now, you need to get pictures. You never know
what's going to happen." The last time I had any contact
with Anthony
00:14:45
was the 15th of June because it was my birthday
on the 17th of June, and I said to him,
"I'm going on holiday.
00:14:51
I'll see you when I get back,"
that sort of thing, and of course, I never did get
to see him again.
00:14:56
It was the Sunday before I was
due to come home, and I turned my phone back on. There was 50-odd missed calls
or texts,
00:15:06
hundreds and hundreds
of messages coming through, that, "You need to ring home,"
you know,
00:15:10
"Something has happened,"
so I called my son, and he had to
tell me over the phone
00:15:15
that Anthony
had been found dead. To be honest, it was just
a bit of a blur. It was so fast, and I don't even
really remember much about it.
00:15:26
I was just in shock
that it could happen. You know, you really don't
expect this to happen.
00:15:32
You go on holiday for your
birthday, et cetera, and then find out
one of your children had died.
00:15:38
-Sarah approached the police
for some more information about her son's death. -Anthony was found dead
in the street.
00:15:45
So I said, "Well, you know,
was he stabbed, shot, beaten? What?" No, nothing. Not a mark on him,
"And we don't know why."
00:15:53
They'd done a postmortem
the Friday before, and nothing had come up
and shown, so I said to him
straightaway then,
00:16:00
"Something's not right." -Anthony's friends told
detectives that he'd arranged to meet up with a man
on the night he disappeared.
00:16:08
The police soon realized
it was the same person who dialed 999,
Stephen Port. On the 26th of June,
he was arrested.
00:16:18
He laptop was seized
and his DNA taken. -It starts to unravel, and the police do start
to put the pieces together
00:16:26
and figure out that he is
connected to this in some way, so Port's story changes.
00:16:32
He continues to lie, and I think he's sailing
quite close to the wind with this particular case.
00:16:40
-Port told detectives
that Anthony had taken drugs and fallen asleep
after they'd had sex.
00:16:46
He said he then left
the 23-year-old in the flat, and when he got back
from work later that day,
00:16:52
Anthony was dead. Port said he panicked
and carried the body outside before calling the police.
00:16:59
The investigators believed him. -And I think he feels
quite relieved when he gets away with it
because I think that once he was
00:17:07
in the police station,
once he was being questioned, he probably did think
the game was up,
00:17:11
and I don't think he could
quite believe his luck when he walked away from it. -The police have missed
an opportunity to capture Port.
00:17:18
He would go on to kill
three more young men. Human-rights campaigner
Peter Tatchell believes
00:17:26
all the deaths could've been
avoided if communication between the authorities
and the public were improved.
00:17:33
-One of the problems the gay
community and police face is that many crimes linked
to dating apps are not reported.
00:17:43
There is, in general,
a very significant underreporting
of homophobic hate crime,
00:17:49
but there appears to be
a particular underreporting of crimes linked to Grindr
and other social dating apps.
00:17:57
-On June the 26th,
the police charged Port with perverting
the course of justice
00:18:02
and set a trial date
for March 2015. He was immediately released
on bail. -Astonishingly, they did
no further serious
00:18:11
probing of Stephen Port, including his searches
on his laptop and including his phone records.
00:18:22
Those searches might have much
earlier on shown a spotlight on Stephen Port
as a potential killer.
00:18:32
-In fact, Port was ready
to strike again. Just 2 months after
Anthony Walgate's death,
00:18:39
he was back on the dating mobile
phone app Grindr and began messaging 22-year-old
Slovakian Gabriel Kovari.
00:18:47
On the 23rd of August,
Gabriel moved into Port's flat. -He seemed like a very nice guy,
very articulate, intelligent,
00:18:57
well-spoken
who had a passion for art, and he was very much
an aspiring artist. -Ryan invited the couple
into his flat for a coffee.
00:19:09
-So Stephen brings him over, and when Stephen
goes to the toilet, Gabriel then says to me
in sort of hushed tones,
00:19:19
"Ryan, Stephen is not
the man you think he is. He is a bad man," and it didn't
take me long to realize
00:19:25
that Gabriel was not happy
living with Stephen." -I think Stephen Port would have
really had a bit of a shock
00:19:31
with Gabriel Kovari. I think he would've felt
incredibly threatened by him because here is a young man
00:19:36
who is everything
that Stephen Port isn't. He's somebody who's ambitious. He's somebody who's going
somewhere in his life,
00:19:43
and I think Port will feel
incredibly resentful towards him. -He was strikingly different
to the guys
00:19:49
that Stephen would normally
hang around with, and so for that reason,
he piqued my interest really,
00:19:56
and so I thought,
"Oh, well, actually, I'm going to keep in touch
with Gabriel,"
00:20:00
and so we then started to swap
some messages on social media. -But all of a sudden,
the messages stopped.
00:20:07
-And so I raised this
with Stephen about, you know, "Why has Gabriel stopped,
you know, communicating?
00:20:12
Where is he?"
and then Stephen told me that, "I'm not sure where Gabriel
has gone.
00:20:17
He's just disappeared,"
and then it was... It changed after a few days to, "Gabriel has met up and gone out
with an army guy,"
00:20:27
and it changed again to, "Actually, I'm worried about
Gabriel's safety," and then it was about
a week after that,
00:20:37
that I got this really
eerie message from Stephen, a long, long message saying, "And I've got some
really sad news,
00:20:44
but I've heard
from Gabriel's friend that he's gone back home,
and he picked up a mysterious illness
and has died."
00:20:52
-On the 28th of August, 2014, just 5 days after he moved into
Port's flat on Cooke Street,
00:20:59
Gabriel Kovari was found dead. A woman walking her dog in the graveyard
of St. Margaret's Church
00:21:06
found his lifeless body
propped up against a wall. -It was an awful,
awful realization,
00:21:14
you know, that he was... You know, he seemed like
such a nice, pure person, and, you know,
coming to this country,
00:21:21
and, you know, what a way
to be welcomed by this country, to end in such, you know,
awful circumstances.
00:21:30
-It's appeared that he,
Gabriel Kovari, had died of a drugs overdose,
but the shocking reality
00:21:36
was that Stephen Port
had drugged and killed him, just as he did
with Anthony Walgate
00:21:41
2 months previously. Port had now killed two men. His urges were only
intensifying,
00:21:48
and in less than a month,
another man would be dead. The police had arrested
and charged him
00:21:55
on perverting
the course of justice after he failed
to correctly report the death of his first victim,
Anthony Walgate,
00:22:03
but they had no idea
that Port was actually a killer. -I think the key thing
about Stephen Port
00:22:10
getting away with murder is,
there's not that connection between actions
and consequences.
00:22:15
He can take somebody's life,
and nothing happens, and he continues
to get what he wants.
00:22:21
He continues to be able
to assault his victims and to dispose of their bodies
and in the most obvious way,
00:22:28
and I think he does feel
incredibly untouchable at this point in time. -While still out on bail,
Port killed for a third time.
00:22:37
On the 18th of September,
he contacted 21-year-old chef Daniel Whitworth through
an online gay dating site,
00:22:45
and the two decided to meet. Two days later,
Daniel was found dead. His body was discovered
in the graveyard
00:22:52
at St. Margaret's Church
in the same spot as Port's second victim,
Gabriel Kovari,
00:22:58
extraordinarily,
by the exact same dog walker. -I've come through,
and I've seen somebody else,
00:23:05
a different boy, sitting in
exactly the same position, leaning up against
the exact same wall,
00:23:11
and I thinking to meself,
"Please, God, no, please,
not another one." -On the news of his death,
Daniel's stepmother,
00:23:20
Mandy Pearson,
was completely heartbroken. -Well, this is my memory box
for Daniel.
00:23:28
It's got a lot of things
in there, just things
that I'm still finding. Anything that I come across
that reminds me of him even,
00:23:37
I'll just put in there. Adam, Daniel's father,
really did adore his boy. You know, he was going places,
and Daniel's dad was very proud
00:23:52
of that,
extremely proud of that. -But on the 20th of September,
2014, the family's lives
changed forever.
00:24:02
-I opened the door to the police who immediately
removed their hats, and that was when time
stood still for me, really.
00:24:16
I thought, "They're not here
with good news. They just aren't over here
with good news."
00:24:23
I really don't recall
what I actually said next. I cried, and so then,
one of us asked, "How?"
00:24:36
and they did lower
their heads and say, "Well, it looks like
he took his own life."
00:24:44
-Just like his other
two victims, Port had poisoned Daniel
with a toxic amount of GHB.
00:24:51
He then placed his body in the
same place as Gabriel Kovari's. In a bizarre move to try
and evade capture,
00:24:59
Port then wrote and planted
a fake suicide note, which claimed that Daniel
had killed Gabriel
00:25:05
just 3 weeks earlier. -Adam and I actually managed to see the letter
in its entirety.
00:25:13
There wasn't a thing
in that letter that spoke to us about Daniel. There were no names.
00:25:27
He was talking in the wrong
kind of context. It was like, "I didn't tell
my family where I was going."
00:25:40
Well, you wouldn't say that
to your family, and at that point, I said,
"Who is this addressed to?
00:25:51
Because it's not
addressed to us. Is it?" -Something else in the letter
aroused Mandy's suspicions.
00:25:59
-There was, "Don't blame the guy
I was with last night. It was only sex," and obviously,
the first question then was,
00:26:06
"Who? Who was this man?" -The fact that Stephen Port
wrote the fake suicide note,
00:26:12
it does seem
completely incredible. Doesn't it?
But by this point, he thinks he's invincible
00:26:17
because he's gotten away
with murder before, and he sailed quite close
to the wind that time,
00:26:21
so he wants to be careful that
he doesn't get caught again, and I think because
he is quite childlike,
00:26:27
because he is quite immature, he doesn't see how
absolutely incredulous this should appear to be.
00:26:34
-News of the death
of the three young gay men began to spread through
the LGBT community.
00:26:40
A friend of Gabriel Kovari,
John Pape, approached human-rights
campaigner Peter Tatchell.
00:26:46
-I was immediately shocked
that the police had issued no public appeal, and there seemed to be
no ongoing investigation.
00:26:55
That prompted me to ask
John Pape to contact Galop, the police-monitoring group,
00:27:04
and PinkNews,
the main gay website. I asked him to try and get them
to press the police for answers.
00:27:15
Both Galop and PinkNews
did go to the police but were reassured that there
was nothing suspicious
00:27:22
or unusual about the deaths. -Port had managed to evade
capture for a third time.
00:27:28
However, his killing spree
was about to temporarily halted. On the 23rd of March, 2015,
Port pleaded guilty
00:27:38
to perverting
the course of justice during the investigation
into Anthony Walgate's death.
00:27:45
He was sentenced to 8 months
in prison but only served 2 of them. On the 4th of June,
he was released.
00:27:52
Port was free to kill again. -I never really understood
the circumstances at the time
00:27:58
of why he was in prison,
but I did ask him, obviously, when he got, via text message,
"What was that all about?"
00:28:04
You know, "Why were you in
prison, you know, for a couple of months?" and eerily,
he said to me on text message,
00:28:09
"It was a 90-second mistake,
Ryan, that cost me several months
of my life in prison,"
00:28:15
and I never really understood
what he meant by that, but looking back,
it's kind of a bit chilling.
00:28:25
-Just 3 months after
being released from prison, Port struck again. On the 14th of September, 2015,
00:28:32
almost exactly a year
since the last murder, the body of 25-year-old
forklift driver Jack Taylor
00:28:39
was found
in the same churchyard as Gabriel Kovari
and Daniel Whitworth. -Well, I think the graveyard
00:28:47
became a kind of favorite
disposal site for him because it served two purposes. It got the bodies
out of the way,
00:28:53
but it also created
a bit of narrative for anybody coming
across these individuals.
00:28:59
This graveyard was the place
where often homeless people, people who were down
on their luck would hang out,
00:29:05
and that creates a little bit
of a story in the beginning, when the bodies are discovered.
00:29:09
-Jack's family were devastated
but began to question the circumstances
surrounding his death.
00:29:15
-We know Jack, obviously,
and Jack is very particular. He didn't like the dark,
didn't like it at all,
00:29:20
first off, and second of all, Jack wouldn't just walk
in a park area, let alone a cemetery
or anything like that, you know?
00:29:28
I mean, he wouldn't. -And it doesn't make sense
to leave the house at, like, half 2 in the morning,
00:29:33
3 o'clock in the morning
to go stay over at a park. -Yeah.
-That doesn't even make sense.
00:29:37
-He was just an absolute joy
to be around. -Loving, caring, always there
for other people.
00:29:45
-Determined to find out more,
the Taylor family asked to see the CCTV footage of Jack's
last-known movements.
00:29:53
It showed him walking with
a tall blond stranger. In October 2015, the police
put an appeal to the public,
00:30:00
and it was soon confirmed that the mysterious man
in the footage was Stephen Port.
00:30:07
-In the end,
it was the determination of Jack Taylor's family
to pursue the police.
00:30:14
That eventually led them
to take Port seriously. I believe had that not happened,
00:30:21
Port might well have got away
or got away with it. -On the 15th of October, 2015,
Port was arrested on suspicion
00:30:30
of causing the deaths
of all four young men. The police had a serial killer
in custody,
00:30:37
one that had previously
slipped through their fingers. The police had originally
believed that the deaths
00:30:43
were all self-administered
drug overdoses. They were determined
to find out the truth.
00:30:50
Detectives searching Port's flat
had ceased his laptop and mobile phone. They interrogated him
about his search history,
00:30:59
which included,
"boy drug raped." His hard drive also
contained videos of him having sex
with unconscious men.
00:31:08
Under questioning, Port admitted
that he'd met his third victim, Daniel Whitworth,
at a sex party,
00:31:14
but he knew nothing
about his death. He also claimed that he hadn't
administered drugs
00:31:20
to anyone and denied
killing the four young men. -He's quite well-spoken.
He appears to be quite reserved.
00:31:28
I think what we're seeing here
is a bit of a veneer that he's crafted to present
to the rest of the world.
00:31:34
You wouldn't think that this is
the type of person who could do
this kind of thing.
00:31:38
-But the police
weren't falling for it. They could link Port
to all four of his victims.
00:31:43
On the 18th of October, 2015,
he was arrested and charged with the murders
of Anthony Walgate,
00:31:50
Gabriel Kovari, Jack Taylor
and Daniel Whitworth. -I was told via the phone. The liaison officer
that we had previously,
00:32:04
he phoned with
the opening line of, "Don't build your hopes up,
but we've arrested someone,"
00:32:10
and I said, "Right. This is just
too huge for me to deal with, and I need to speak to Adam,
so I'm going to let you go."
00:32:20
To try and explain to you
how that was, the surreal situation
that we were in, also included
the emotion of comfort
00:32:37
because we thought he wasn't
in that dark place. He didn't take his own life. He wasn't angry with any of us.
He wasn't upset.
00:32:46
He wasn't in this awful place
where we couldn't reach him, where he didn't come to us,
where...
00:32:54
And for that split second,
you're comforted by the fact that your son has been murdered,
which is bizarre.
00:33:05
It's bizarre. We had a sigh of relief, and that was quickly
followed by anger. It was just incredible.
00:33:13
We didn't know
where to go from there. -The day I actually got
the phone call to say
00:33:21
that they'd arrested him
for the four murders, I actually --
I didn't even feel glad.
00:33:30
I felt like I'd been shot,
to be quite honest, straight pain to me chest,
and I sat on the stairs.
00:33:34
It was awful. -Yes.
-I couldn't believe it. -It's, like, it's one thing,
putting everything together,
00:33:42
what me and Jen did
and believing that we are right, that somebody has done
something to Jack,
00:33:50
but when you're told it, and it becomes official,
it's awful. It is awful. -And it wasn't long
before the story
00:34:01
of the shocking murders
hit the headlines. -A friend of mine had sent me
a link to a news article online,
00:34:08
and I clicked on it, and kind of like an icy dread
sort of went over my body, and I sat upright in bed
where it was like,
00:34:18
"Local man Stephen Port arrested
on suspicion of four murders," and then I looked
through the names,
00:34:24
and I saw Gabriel
being one of them. -As the story broke, more men
came forward claiming that
00:34:30
they, too, had been drugged
and sexually assaulted at Port's flat
after meeting him online.
00:34:37
-I think there was
a very clear reason why Port chose to use GHB. I think that he was tapping
into the stigma
00:34:44
and that the lifestyle, or the perceived lifestyle,
of young gay men. I think he realized that,
you know,
00:34:51
"If this does go too far, if somebody does have too much,
and they don't survive,
00:34:57
then I'm going to be able
to present it in a particular way that people
aren't going to ask questions."
00:35:03
-I was very surprised
what an ugly person he is, and I think the only way he could get
these young attractive boys
00:35:11
was to drug them because nobody
would've looked at him twice. He was a very ugly person
inside and out
00:35:19
and a sad, lonely bald old man, and I don't think
he's very bright, and he literally thought
he was God,
00:35:30
that he could
just get away with it. -In July 2016, Port was charged
with the rape
00:35:37
of eight more victims
between 2012 and October 2015, the month
he was finally captured.
00:35:46
-The single most shocking thing
about Stephen Port is that a monster can prey
on innocent young men
00:35:55
in absolutely plain sight in the East End
of London in 2015, and no one seems to pay
any attention at all.
00:36:05
-When his trial began
at the Old Bailey on the 5th of October, 2016, Port was faced with 29 separate
charges of rape, sexual assault,
00:36:15
administering a substance
with intent and with murder. The 41-year-old pleaded
not guilty.
00:36:22
This meant the family of
the victims would have to face the man responsible
for killing their loved ones.
00:36:28
-And we walked in. I knew I was going
to look at him, and he was up there
behind glass,
00:36:35
and he was looking down
when we came in. I wanted Stephen Port to give me
some eye contact.
00:36:45
That was a need in me. I was just looking for any,
any small sign of human emotion
00:36:55
from this thing,
this thing with two arms and two legs
that was apparently human.
00:37:03
I wanted something
from his eyes, and I never got that. I didn't. I didn't get that.
00:37:17
-For 4 weeks, the jury were
presented with evidence to prove that Port was a killer.
00:37:22
Investigators had found his DNA
on Gabriel Kovari's sunglasses and Daniel Whitworth's clothes.
00:37:28
Handwriting experts
also confirmed that Daniel didn't write the suicide
note found alongside him.
00:37:36
Ryan Edwards testified against his former neighbor
during the trial. -So I did my evidence,
and as I was leaving,
00:37:44
and I couldn't help but kind
of quickly glance at Stephen because I had to walk quite near
past him as I was leaving,
00:37:51
and chillingly, he kind of
gave me a crooked half smile, almost like a mischievous grin
that a child would give
00:37:59
when they've been caught out
doing something they know is wrong,
and that was eerie.
00:38:06
-On the 25th of November, 2016,
the jury convicted Port of a total of 22 offenses
against 11 men,
00:38:15
including the four murders,
four rapes, four sexual assaults and 10 counts of administering
a substance with intent.
00:38:23
Mr. Justice Openshaw
sentenced Stephen Port to a whole life tariff. He was immediately sent
to Belmarsh Prison.
00:38:32
He will never be released. Justice had finally been served. -That sick, twisted scumbag
will never be able to hurt
00:38:40
or destroy anyone else's
family or life. Our Jack can finally
rest in peace. We will always be completely
heartbroken as a family.
00:38:50
-Since Port's incarceration,
police are re-examining as many as 58 unexplained deaths
involving the drug GHB.
00:38:58
-There are almost
certainly many, many more young men
who were assaulted one way
00:39:05
or another by Stephen Port. The only thing
we can be grateful for is that Port was
eventually stopped.
00:39:12
He was, in every respect,
a most terrifying figure. -In October 2016,
the Metropolitan Police
00:39:22
referred themselves
to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The IPCC launched an independent
investigation into 17 officers
00:39:32
who handled the response
to the four deaths. The investigation continues. Despite the internal police
review and Port's incarceration,
00:39:42
nothing can bring back the four
young men that lost their lives. -We've got to make room
for this to run parallel
00:39:54
with the life that... I'm not going to use
the word destroyed because he's taken our boy,
and he's not taken anymore.
00:40:02
We do reminisce. We do reminisce about Daniel,
and, you know, some of the things we did
when we were out and about,
00:40:10
and, you know,
that's becoming easier to do. -No. It still isn't getting
easier over time.
00:40:18
He used to say,
"You know, if I'm..." Being in early teens,
he called me Sessa. He never called me Mom,
and he always used to say,
00:40:24
"You know, Sessa,
one day, I'll be famous. Everybody will be
talking about me," which they are, but, obviously,
for the wrong reasons.
00:40:33
-We haven't had time to grieve.
Have we? -No. We still have days now where
we'll just get a pass
00:40:41
for what we call a normal day, and we don't feel like
anything is normal anymore.
00:40:46
Do we?
But a normal day, and all of a sudden, we say,
"Oh, my god," like... -He's not here.
00:40:52
-Jack is not here, and then
you'll have another day where you actually think,
"Jack was murdered."
00:40:59
Watching your mom and dad
every day, every single day,
fall apart... -Right, and there's nothing
you can do about it.
00:41:09
-Because, you know,
like everybody in the world, if your mom and dad
are upset, or, you know, something
is wrong, you try and fix it,
00:41:20
and there's nothing we can do, and that is hard, very hard. You know, watching the fact
that they fell apart.
00:41:30
They've aged, and they're
people we've always known. They're not the same
people anymore.
00:41:38
That is hard. It's hard for all of us.
Ain't it? -Yeah. -Stephen Port affected the lives
of so many people,
00:41:51
not just those he killed
and those he raped but also all of
their friends, family
00:41:56
and the entire LGBT community
as a whole. He murdered his victims for
his own sexual gratification,
00:42:03
and it's a tragedy
that he was able to get away with it
for so long. When he was finally captured,
00:42:09
his horrific crimes
were brought to light, but now, we should forget
the name Stephen Port
00:42:15
and celebrate the memory
of Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel and Jack
instead. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪