The mother of Stephen Port’s first victim says Stephen Port would have gone on to kill more people had she and other victim’s families not been so vocal in raising their concerns.
Anthony Walgate, 23, of Hull, was Port’s first victim in June 2014.
Due the police’s failure to properly investigate Port, he was able to carry on attacking young gay men for 16 months, killing Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, before being caught and convicted of their murders.
Mrs Sak claimed police wrongly decided her son was a ‘druggie student’ and ‘shut down’ investigations without making proper checks on Port’s background.
“Had that been done, three lads would not have died. Plain and simple as that,” she said.
What really scares me more than anything is if I had not been so vocal – and the Taylor family – he would just have gone on and on. He was literally playing Russian roulette with these young gay lads. Some died and some did not and he would have carried on and on.”
“I kept speaking to the liaison officer saying ‘have you looked at his laptop, have you looked for his phone – he’s a young lad, he would not go anywhere without his phone. Have you spoken to his friends?’
“I literally got shut down every single time with ‘it’s not suspicious, it’s unexplained’. I just felt like screaming because nobody would listen.
“Had deaths been girls, there would have been a lot more investigation”
Mrs Sak said she was “disappointed” when the coroner ruled out underlying prejudice.
“If Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel and Jack had been girls found in such close proximity there would have been an outcry. There would have been a lot more investigation – and there just wasn’t.,” she said.
“More needs to be done to engage with the LGBT community and make it easier for male victims to report attacks. I still think there are some of his (Port’s) rape victims out there that have not come forward.”
