Stephen Port: First victim's death not taken seriously, mother says
Stephen Port/Met PoliceDetectives did not take the death of Stephen Port's first victim seriously and considered him "just a number", the man's mother has told an inquest.
Port killed 23-year-old Anthony Walgate in June 2014 by giving him an overdose of the "date-rape" drug GHB.
Mr Walgate's mother, Sarah Sak, told the hearing police said her son's death was "unusual" but "not suspicious".
She added that police then "lied" by saying she had told them her son had "dabbled in drugs" like cocaine.
Port would go on to murder three more young men at his flat in Barking, east London. Mr Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, were all found dead near his home.
The inquests into the deaths of Port's four victims, held at Barking Town Hall, was shown a report by family liaison officer Det Con Paul Slaymaker detailing his first conversation with Ms Sak.
In it, the officer noted that Ms Sak told him her son "likes to drink" and would "dabble in drugs - she thinks cocaine".
Andrew O'Connor QC, counsel to the coroner, asked if this was an accurate record.
Ms Sak replied: "That's an absolute lie. I never said that. I did say he liked to drink, because he did."
PA MediaMs Sak told the hearing that Det Con Slaymaker said her son was found dead in the street, which was "unusual" but "not suspicious".
He went on to say the death was "probably" caused by drugs, Ms Sak told the inquest.
"I said: 'Anthony was murdered. I will never shut up and I will never go away.'"
Ms Sak told the inquest that Det Con Slaymaker told her the Met Police "get more deaths in a week" than her home city of Hull had in a year.
She said she felt her son was being treated as just "a number" by the police.
'Snapped at me'
In September 2014, Ms Sak found out about the deaths of Port's second and third victims, Daniel Whitworth and Gabriel Kovari, and raised it with Det Con Slaymaker.
She told jurors: "I said how close they were and he just snapped at me. He said, 'They are nothing to do with each other - one did not live in the area and the other was homeless.'"
Clair Dobbin QC, representing Det Con Slaymaker and other officers, suggested he was "not the angry, dismissive, even homophobic person" Ms Sak described in her evidence.
Ms Sak replied: "I do not agree."
The inquest hearings are looking at whether lives could have been saved had police acted differently.
Port, now 46, was found guilty at the Old Bailey in 2016 of the four murders and sentenced to a whole-life order.
