Stephen Port: Alleged Barking serial killer ‘selfishly’ pursued fetish
The bodies of 21-year-old Daniel Whitworth and 22-year-old Gabriel Kovari were found in the grounds of Barking Abbey churchyard - Credit: Archant
An alleged serial killer took the lives of four young men as he “selfishly” pursued his own sexual fetish, jurors were told.
Stephen Port's boarded-up home in Cooke Street, Barking - Credit: Archant
Stephen Port, 41, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of murdering the men at his flat in Cooke Street, Barking, by surreptitiously giving them overdoses of date rape drug GHB and then dumping their bodies nearby.
He also faces a string of sex charges including administering a substance and rape in relation to eight more men he met through gay dating websites.
In his closing speech yesterday, prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC told jurors to put aside feelings of “anger and disgust” at Mr Port’s behaviour.
He said it would be “inhuman” not to feel for the four dead men, and their families who had sat in court throughout the trial.
The jury is considering its verdict in the case of suspected Barking serial killer Stephen Port Picture: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire - Credit: PA
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The lawyer also told jurors the case was not about Mr Port’s sexuality as it could just as easily be set within the straight community.
He said: “The prosecution case is not hard to understand because we say this defendant was driven by his seemingly insatiable appetite for sex with ‘Twinks’ [young gay men] while they were unconscious.
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“If, as we suggest, the defendant was motivated to penetrate unconscious young men, he needed to find a way of raping them against their will. The obvious solution was drugs.”
Mr Rees said the evidence showed all four alleged murder victims died shortly after being with Mr Port in his flat and eight more young men complained he had – or had tried to – take advantage of them sexually.
The prosecutor queried if it could be a “dreadful series of coincidences” resulting in the defendant being wrongly accused, as Mr Port claims.
Or was it the case that Mr Port had been “selfishly pursuing a fetish for drugging and raping unconscious Twinks”?
Mr Rees said: “Is this defendant unbelievably unlucky? Have circumstances conspired to point the finger at him? Or is he a very guilty man?”
Throughout cross examination, Mr Port had been exposed as a “habitual and compulsive liar”, Mr Rees said.
Mr Port denies all 29 charges against him.
