Serial killer should die in prison: judge
Man used dating apps to lure victims
• Stephen Port didn’t have to go out of his way to meet the men he would eventually kill.
His task was as simple as turning on his phone and opening up dating apps geared toward young gay men — like Grindr.
Once he had made a connection online, Port would lure the men to his London apartment, where he would drug them with GHB and rape them after they had fallen unconscious.
The psychoactive drug was intentionally administered in fatal doses, leading to the deaths of four men: Anthony Walgate, 23; Gabriel Kovari, 22; Daniel Whitworth, 21; and Jack Taylor, 25.
Friday, the 41- year- old Port was sentenced to life in prison without parole for those murders.
Judge Peter Openshaw said Port should die in prison for his “dreadful offences.”
Relatives of the victims cheered and clapped as the sentence was announced in the Old Bailey courthouse.
Port was convicted by a jury on Wednesday of plying his victims with drinks spiked with lethal doses of the drug GHB, raping them when they were unconscious and dumping their bodies in and around a nearby graveyard.
“Stephen Port is probably one of the most dangerous i ndividuals I’ ve encountered,” Detective Chief Inspector Tim Duffield said, according to Sky News.
“He’s a voracious sexual predator who appears to have been fixated, nay obsessed, with surreptitiously drugging young, often vulnerable men for the exclusive purpose of rape.”
“From what we’ve seen as an investigation team, this is a highly devious, manipulative and self- obsessed individual,” Duffield continued. “Throughout both the crimi nal i nvestigation, many days of police interviews and during the course of a long trial, he has never once shown a shred of remorse for his victims or indeed their families.”
Grindr, a social media app that assists gay men in organizing face- to- face meetings, did not respond to a request for comment.
The company’s safety tips urge users to be cautious, noting that people should be careful about revealing personal information to strangers and should remember to let a trusted person know where they’re going if they plan to meet someone.
“If you start out lying, you will eventually get caught,” the company says. “Don’t bait and switch — it’s the surest way f or things to end badly. Grindr is not the venue for you to explore your fantasies of being a different person. That’s not fair to the Grindr community, which thrives on honest representations.”
London police said Port left his victims’ bodies near a churchyard about 500 yards from his home. On two occasions three weeks apart, the BBC reported, a dog walker found two of the bodies “lying in the exact same position.”
Once the killings were carried out, Port went out of his way to cover his tracks by discarding t he men’s phones and even planting fake suicide notes. He also “blocked” one of his victims on Grindr and later deleted the app on his own phone.
Last month, jurors listened to the testimony of a 26- year- old man who survived a frightening sexual encounter with Port at his home. The man told jurors that during a sexual encounter Port twice injected him with a substance, without warning, using a “plastic syringe.”
“On this occasion I jumped off the bed and told him you can’t do that — I’m not comfortable,” the man, whose name was withheld, told jurors.
The U. K.’s independent police watchdog is investigating why detectives did not initially link the deaths of the four murder victims.
Police began investigating the deaths as potential homicides only when the family of Port’s final victim, Jack Taylor, pressed for action.
“We finally have justice for Jack and the other boys,” Taylor’s sister Donna said outside court.
“A sick and twisted scumbag will never be able to hurt or destroy any other family’s life,” she said.
Nik Noone, chief executive of the LGBT anti- violence charity Galop, said: “Our thoughts are with the friends and families of the young men who tragically lost their lives, the survivors that have come forward and those who are affected by the issues raised in this case.
“Our focus now turns to understanding what l essons need to be learned from the police response to unexplained deaths and sexual assault of young men and what must be done to learn how to prevent someone like Port in the future.”
A HIGHLY DEVIOUS, MANIPULATIVE, SELF-OBSESSED INDIVIDUAL.