Grindr serial killer Stephen Port. (Metropolitan Police)
Britain’s police watchdog, the IOPC, will reinvestigate the Metropolitan Police’s handling of murders of four men by ‘Grindr killer’ Stephen Port.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct said on Thursday (23 June) that it will re-scrutinise the Met’s investigation, after a scathing inquest in 2021 found there were “failures which cannot be overlooked” riddling the force’s investigation.
Stephen Port murdered at least four young men – Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor – over a 16-month-long period that shocked and appalled Britain’s LGBTQ+ community between 2014 and 2015.
Fresh inquests into the murders in 2021 heard a friend of one victim argue officers in the case were guilty of “institutional homophobia” as they shrugged off evidence even as friends and family of victims begged them to investigate Port.
The jury was told by coroner Sarah Munro QC that they could not consider homophobia or discrimination by officers as a contributing factors in the deaths of the young gay men.
Announcing the re-investigation, IOPC regional director Graham Beesley said: “In this case, the reinvestigation process has identified evidence which meets both the significant new information and material flaw categories, and we believe a proportionate – but thorough – new investigation is in the public interest.”
The Central Criminal Court sentenced Port to life in prison in 2016.