Chef accused of poisoning gay internet dates ‘freed to kill again’ despite arrest over first ‘victim’, court hears
Stephen Port, 41, allegedly poisoned four men with lethal doses of the party drug GHB to satisfy his fetish for sex with unconscious men
A GAY serial killer was free to murder three more young men despite being jailed over the death of his first victim, a court heard today.
Stephen Port, 41, allegedly poisoned four men with lethal doses of the party drug GHB to satisfy his fetish for sex with unconscious men.
Gay chef Stephen Port killed four men as he administered huge doses of drugs and raped them, a court has heard
The chef, who also worked as a male escort, then dragged the bodies from his one-bedroom flat in Barking, east London and dumped three in a churchyard near his flat.
Some had been propped up in a sitting position with bottles of GHB planted on them and he gave one had a fake suicide note, the Old Bailey has heard.
The jury was told how Port was arrested after Middlesex University fashion student Anthony Walgate, 23, was found dead outside Port's block of flats on June 19, 2014.
Port first told police he had discovered the body outside, but changed his story when it emerged he had offered Mr Walgate £800 to spend the night with him after meeting him on escort site 'Sleepyboys.'
The court heard Port browsed Mr Walgate's profile between making internet searches for 'boys being drug-raped'.
The young escort messaged a friend saying: "8ton job is on. God, I'm going to get killed."
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said: "Obviously, he does not mean that literally, but that's what happened."
Port eventually told officers in interviews he had taken Mr Walgate back to his flat as an escort and they had had sex.
He claimed the alleged victim had taken drugs himself and said he had moved him outside so suspicion did not fall on him.
Port then told officers he had lied because "if he's dead, they're gonna think I murdered him" and that he "chickened out" of telling the truth.
But the prosecutor said: "This was not a case of Mr Walgate unintentionally taking an overdose.
"The considerable lengths to which the defendant went when attempting to cover up his association with Mr Walgate will reveal the guilt he felt about what happened.
"He persisted in his lies to the police about his knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Walgate. This landed him in prison."
Mr Rees explained: "As a result of his confession to providing a false witness statement, the defendant was charged with perverting the course of justice to which he later pleaded guilty."
But before Port was jailed he had allegedly killed two more victims.
Slovakian Gabriel Kovari, 22, and 21-year-old chef Daniel Whitworth, from Gravesend, in Kent, were allegedly murdered within weeks of each other in August and September 2015.
Both, like Mr Walgate, had died of GHB poisoning and were found in an almost identical position in St Margaret's churchyard, in Abbey Green.
Mr Rees said: "In March 2015, at Snaresbrook Crown Court, he was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment and having served part of that sentence, he was released on an electronic tag in early June 2014."
Port left a fake suicide note in the hand of Kovari in a 'wicked' bid to frame him for the killing of another man.
The 41-year-old is said to have launched an 'elaborate cover-up' to hide the murder of his second victim in August 2014.
Port told a pal the Slovakian had moved to Spain and died as a result of infection.
He then posed as an American ex-pornstar, Jon Luck, on Facebook in chats with Mr Kovari's partner, Thierry Amodio, who lived in Spain, it is claimed.
During the chats he allegedly laid the groundwork to implicate Daniel Whitworth in Mr Kovari's death.
Port is said to have killed again just three months later, in September 2015, when forklift truck driver Jack Taylor, 25, was found near the same churchyard.
The court has heard Port described himself as "70 percent more gay than straight' and was attracted to small boyish-type men, known as 'twinks'.
He trawled social networking sites, including 'Grindr' and 'Fitlads', to meet his young victims and buy the drugs he used to kill them, it is claimed.
Port was allegedly obsessed with 'drug-rape' pornography, featuring men and women being apparently raped while stupefied through drugs.
He sometimes mimicked the videos by filming himself having sex with unconscious men after spiking their drinks or injecting drugs in their backsides, a jury was told.
The former chef and catering manager, who worked at a Stagecoach bus depot in West Ham, is said to have committed a string of sex offences against 12 men over three-and-a-half years - four of whom died.
Port, formerly of Barking, east London, denies four counts of murder, four counts of manslaughter, four counts of administering a poison with intent to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm, seven counts of rape, six counts of administering a substance with intent to overpower to allow sexual activity, and four counts of sexual assault by penetration.
The trial, which is expected to last up to eight weeks, continues.