WHY WAS GRINDR KILLER FREE TO MURDER AGAIN?
Stephen Port was jailed in November 2016 after luring four young, gay men through dating apps so he could drug them to death and rape them.
Just the year before, in March 2015, he was given eight months for perverting the course of justice. He served just under three. Had he served the full sentence, he wouldn’t have been free to murder his fourth victim, Jack Taylor.
Easy Kills, written by Sebastian MurphyBates, tracks Port’s life and crimes and questions why this monster was allowed to leave London’s gay community so terrified, for so long...
July 23, 2015, Barking, east London
Stephen is back at 62 Cooke Street, having served under three months in Brixton Prison, south London, for perverting the course of justice. He could have faced another five months inside, had his full sentence been served. That would have put his release date at November 23. But none of that matters now. He’s free to invite whomever he pleases to the flat in which he’s already killed three men.
September 13, 2015, Barking, east London
Jack Taylor is out drinking early into Sunday morning when he decides to call time on his night on the town. He opens the Grindr dating app on his phone and speaks to Stephen. Is he around? They arrange to meet outside Barking train station at 3.15am.
From there, the new acquaintances walk across the town centre to Stephen’s flat. Stephen’s Grindr account vanishes from the platform after he blocks Jack’s profile at around 7.20am. For the fourth time, Stephen has a corpse in his apartment. He stays with Jack’s body for the day while he tries to figure out what to do, though he will eventually settle on a disposal that so far seems to have worked in his favour.
Dagenham, east London
Donna and Jen Taylor aren’t worried when their younger brother doesn’t return to the family home on Sunday.
Any 25-year-old male living in London would surely find it slightly overbearing if their sisters were pestering them to come back when the most likely reply they’d receive would reveal him to be nursing a hangover on a friend’s sofa after a good night out.
Donna is speaking to her mother on the phone when she learns of her brother’s death. The knowledge comes courtesy of her mother’s screams when the police come in to tell Jeanette that Jack has been found. Binmen discovered his body, they explain, in a seated position, propped up in the grounds of St Margaret’s Church on September 14.
Donna and Jen simply cannot accept that their brother died of an overdose by his own hand.
Eleven days after Jack’s death, Dagenham, east London
Donna and Jen contact the Met for an update, demonstrating more proactivity than the entirety of their local police force. Their reward is hearing that the investigation about which they are enquiring doesn’t exist. Not only do police inform them that they aren’t investigating, they categorically state that Jack had not been drugged or raped. Donna and Jen start their own investigation.
It isn’t just the bereaved who are frustrated. The fact that a serial killer has been at large for more than a year leaves gay men asking why the police didn’t protect them.
The sisters finally secure an appeal in the local paper... the Barking and Dagenham Post and London Evening Standard run stills of the CCTV footage in the hope of identifying the man seen walking with Jack hours before his death.
Within hours, the identity of the supposedly elusive man is revealed through a tip-off. Two days after the pictures first circulate, Barking and Dagenham police officers arrest Stephen Port.
Extract from Easy Kills by Sebastian Murphy-Bates, RRP £8.99, from mirrorbooks. co.uk and all good book stores