Senior officer signals disappointment murder squad turned down Stephen Port case
Ryan Hooper, Press Association
Stephen Port was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 for the murders of four men. - Credit: Met Police
A senior police officer has signalled his disappointment the Met Police's murder investigation team (MIT) turned down a request to take over the "complex" investigation into serial killer Stephen Port's first victim.
Temporary Supt Mike Hamer was so suspicious of Port's potential involvement in the unexplained death of 23-year-old Anthony Walgate that he emailed colleagues a week into the inquiry, stating it might be a case of "if and when" Port was arrested on suspicion of murder.
Port dumped the body of Anthony Walgate outside his flat in Cooke Street. - Credit: Sebastian Murphy-Bates
Unbeknown to police at the time, 6ft 5in Port arranged to meet fashion student Mr Walgate at his flat in Cooke Street, Barking, on June 17, 2014, where he plied him with a fatal dose of GHB, dumped his body outside two days later and called police, pretending to be a passer-by.
Bus depot chef Port was only charged with murder the following year when police eventually linked the case of Mr Walgate with the deaths of three other young, gay men who were found dead in public areas near Port's flat, all with vast quantities of the drug in their systems.
Jurors at the inquest into their deaths are being asked to assess whether the victims' lives could have been saved had police acted differently.
Mr Hamer was asked four times by Beatrice Collier, counsel to the inquest, whether he was satisfied that the borough's request to have the investigation taken over by the more experienced MIT was refused.
Barking and Dagenham is on track to hit 500 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 in the next few days, according to the council. - Credit: Ken Mears
Mr Hamer, giving evidence today (October 20), eventually replied: "It's not the answer we wanted."
Murder detectives turned down the case because evidence was not deemed strong enough to suggest the case was a homicide and so it continued to be treated as an unexplained death, the inquest heard.
Clockwise from top left: Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, Jack Taylor and Anthony Walgate. - Credit: Met Police
Mr Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, were all murdered during a 16-month period between June 2014 and September 2015.
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Port, now 46, was handed a whole life prison term in 2016 upon conviction.
Police giving evidence to the inquest have previously apologised for a series of failings, including not sharing intelligence with colleagues about a previous allegation against the suspect, not instructing a search on the police national database about him and not sending his laptop off for scrutiny until nearly a year after he first struck.
The inquest continues.
