The Metropolitan Police has voluntarily referred its handling of the deaths of four men in Barking over to the Independent Police Complaints Commission after a man was charged with multiple murders.

A separate investigation to the criminal proceedings against suspect Stephen Port, 40, of Cooke Street, Barking, will look at potential vulnerabilities in the response by the police to the deaths between June 19 2014 and September 14 2015.

Mr Port appeared at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court today accused of murdering the men by poisoning them and dumping their bodies in grounds at St Margaret’s Church and nearby locations. He was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey charged with four counts of murder and four counts of administering a poison with intent to endanger life or inflict grevious bodily harm.

The most recent death was of Jack Taylor, 25, a forklift operator from Dagenham, whose body was found near the Abbey Ruins close to North Street, Barking, on September 14. Anthony Patrick Walgate, 23, from Barnet, a fashion and design student at Middlesex University, was pronounced dead on Cooke Street on June 19 last year.

The two other deaths he is charged in connection with are of Gabriel Kovari, 22, from Lewisham, whose body was found by a dog walker near the churchyard of St Margaret’s Church, North Street, on August 28 last year and Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, Kent, whose body was found by the same dog walker near the churchyard on September 20 last year.