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Serial killer Stephen Port guilty of murders of three men Stephen Port found guilty of murders of four men
(about 4 hours later)
Serial killer Stephen Port has been found guilty of murdering three young gay men to fulfil his sexual fantasies. Stephen Port, a chef from London, has been convicted of the murders of four young gay men he met through dating websites.
The 41-year-old chef contacted his victims on dating websites, including Grindr, and plied them with drinks spiked with fatal amounts of the date-rape drug GHB to rape them while they were unconscious, the Old Bailey heard. The 41-year-old, who used dating apps such as Grindr to meet his victims, drugged them with fatal amounts of GHB to rape them before dumping some of their bodies in or near a graveyard close to his flat in Barking, east London, the Old Bailey had heard.
Port dumped their bodies in or near a graveyard within 500 metres of his flat in Barking, east London. Port was found guilty of the murders of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25. The jury of 10 women and two men convicted him of 17 offences against a number of victims, including the four murders. These charges included seven counts of administering a substance, three rapes and three sexual assaults.
Port denied all the charges against him but was found guilty of the murders of Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor as well as a range of sexual offences against other men. Jurors have yet to reach verdicts relating to other charges. Mr Justice Openshaw has told jurors he will accept a majority of at least 10 to two on the remaining counts.
Jurors have yet to reach verdicts relating to other charges, including those around the death of Port’s first alleged murder victim, Anthony Walgate. Port gave no reaction from the dock when the guilty verdicts were read out. He had denied all charges.
Mr Justice Openshaw gave the jurors a majority direction on the remaining counts and said he would accept a majority of at least 10 to two. He sent the jury of 10 women and two men back out to continue deliberating. The court was told that police had failed to make a link until after the death of Taylor, the last person to die at Port’s hand.
Taylor’s parents and sisters wept in court as the guilty verdicts were delivered but Port made no reaction. Jurors were told Port had embarked on cover-ups after the deaths, including trying to implicate Whitworth in the death of Kovari by faking a suicide note supposedly written by Whitworth saying he had taken his own life in guilt after accidentally giving Kovari too much GHB during sex.
He was convicted of a total of 16 offences against nine out of 12 alleged victims, including the three murders. Other charges of which he was found guilty included seven counts of administering a substance, three rapes and three sex assaults. The jury has been told that Walgate, a fashion student whose body was found in June 2014 propped up outside the communal entrance to Port’s one-bedroom flat, was his first murder victim.
Port was convicted of the murder of Kovari, originally from Slovakia and temporarily living in Port’s flat, whose body was found in the grounds of St Margaret’s church, around 500 metres from Port’s flat.
Whitworth’s body was found in the same graveyard in September 2014, three weeks after Kovari’s.
The court heard that Taylor died within hours of hooking up with Port on Grindr in the early hours in September 2015, and was found in the same church grounds.
The jury is continuing deliberations.