Stephen Port murders: Police failings 'probably’ contributed to deaths, jury finds — Transcript

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1. 0:00we feel your loss every minute of every
2. 0:02day
3. 0:03we will forever wonder how your lives
4. 0:06would have turned out anthony wargate
5. 0:08gabriel cavari
6. 0:10daniel whitworth
7. 0:12jack taylor they were all young gay men
8. 0:14in their early twenties when stephen
9. 0:16port raped and murdered them
10. 0:20a serial killer who an inquest found
11. 0:22today could have been caught sooner and
12. 0:24stopped had it not been for the
13. 0:26metropolitan police's failures and
14. 0:28missed opportunities today the families
15. 0:30of those young men said they felt
16. 0:32vindicated but furious
17. 0:35we are incensed by the police's
18. 0:37successful attempts to prevent the jury
19. 0:39from examining whether prejudice played
20. 0:41any part in the police's actions
21. 0:44the coroner did not rule that the police
22. 0:45were not homophobic
23. 0:47and our position remains unchanged
24. 0:50based on the treatment we received our
25. 0:52firmly held belief is that the
26. 0:53metropolitan police's actions were in
27. 0:55part driven by homophobia
28. 0:58had four white heterosexual girls being
29. 1:01found in the same manner as anthony
30. 1:03gabriel daniel and jack then the
31. 1:05police's actions and the likely outcomes
32. 1:07would have been different
33. 1:09the first of those murders was in june
34. 1:112014 anthony walgate was a fashion
35. 1:14student who occasionally worked as an
36. 1:16escort using an alias stephen port
37. 1:18arranged for him to visit his flat in
38. 1:20east london there he drugged the 23 year
39. 1:23old with ghb before raping and murdering
40. 1:26him
41. 1:27poor then left his body on the pavement
42. 1:30outside his one bedroom flat and called
43. 1:32an ambulance himself he was even later
44. 1:34arrested and jailed in 2015 for lying
45. 1:38about how he knew the deceased at this
46. 1:41stage police were still treating the
47. 1:43death as non-suspicious
48. 1:46anthony's dad thomas walgate told us the
49. 1:48police investigation was flawed from the
50. 1:50start i was saying to him
51. 1:53who the hell drags her body out of a
52. 1:54flat
53. 1:56dead body and then goes and gets back in
54. 1:58bed
55. 1:59what normal person would do that
56. 2:01and they says to me well perhaps he's
57. 2:03not a normal person
58. 2:05bingo perhaps he's not he wasn't he
59. 2:07hasn't believed every word that port
60. 2:09told him even when he lied and kept
61. 2:12changing his story all the time i
62. 2:13believed him and believed him
63. 2:15just months after killing anthony
64. 2:17walgate and still undetected by the
65. 2:19police stephen paul would go on to kill
66. 2:22his next victim today the jury was
67. 2:24unanimous in finding had basic police
68. 2:27errors not been made when investigating
69. 2:29anthony wargate's death the other young
70. 2:31men would probably still be alive today
71. 2:34in a 16-month killing spree between 2014
72. 2:38and 2015 the serial killer followed a
73. 2:40formula first meeting young gay men on
74. 2:43dating app grinder before giving them
75. 2:45fatal overdoses of the drug ghb raping
76. 2:49and murdering them
77. 2:50today the metropolitan police said they
78. 2:52were deeply sorry that their officers
79. 2:54had not linked the murders but denied
80. 2:57their failure was driven by homophobia
81. 3:00by your own admission your
82. 3:02officers failed to spot a serial killer
83. 3:06can you say confidently that was
84. 3:09absolutely no homophobia
85. 3:11involved in the mishandling of those
86. 3:13cases i don't think the met is
87. 3:16institutionally homophobic and i don't
88. 3:19think that my colleagues are homophobic
89. 3:21as well i don't think that that has been
90. 3:22an issue in these investigations if it
91. 3:25wasn't inherent homophobia that was at
92. 3:28the center of the mishandling of these
93. 3:29cases what was it
94. 3:31it was a range of different
95. 3:33mistakes
96. 3:35leads that weren't followed
97. 3:36curiosity that perhaps wasn't quite
98. 3:38there
99. 3:39things that weren't tied up and
100. 3:41understood to be contributing
101. 3:43a serial killer who today the jury found
102. 3:46was allowed to carry out strikingly
103. 3:48similar murders while police failed to
104. 3:50spot the signs in 2016 stephen port was
105. 3:54given a whole life sentence and will die
106. 3:56in prison while none of his victims
107. 3:58lived to see their 30th birthdays
108. 4:01and families like anthony walgates are
109. 4:04left wondering what life would have
110. 4:05brought for these young men
111. 4:08he was a nice boy he just wanted fun in
112. 4:10his life god we all miss him i thought
113. 4:12it's terrible you know it's just such a
114. 4:14shame and it's so sad those large cuts
115. 4:16are sharp
116. 4:17for one guy who's a killer