Stephen Port: Met treated victim's partner differently 'because he is gay'

Daniel Whitworth was killed by Stephen Port in September 2014

The boyfriend of a man murdered by the serial killer Stephen Port has said he was treated differently by the Met Police because he is gay.

Ricky Waumsley, from Gravesend, Kent, was the partner of Daniel Whitworth, who died in September 2014.

Port murdered four young men between 2014 and 2015 and the deaths were not treated as suspicious until weeks after the final murder.

Inquests are examining the Met Police's initial investigations of the murders.

Mr Whitworth, Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, and Jack Taylor, who were all in their 20s, were killed by overdoses of GHB administered by Port.

He dumped their bodies near his flat in Barking, east London.

In 2016, Port, now aged 46, was found guilty of murdering all four men. He is serving a whole-life prison sentence.

Mandy Whitworth with Daniel Whitworth (L) and his partner Ricky Waumsley (R)

A fake suicide note found in Mr Whitworth's hand, which had actually been written by Port, claimed he had accidentally killed Mr Kovari three weeks earlier and was taking his own life in response.

Giving evidence, Mr Waumsley said he was not shown the full note until nearly a year after his partner's death because police said he was not "next of kin".

"I was really angry because he was my partner of four years", he told jurors at Barking Town Hall.

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He described feeling "pushed out by the police" when Det Sgt Paul Slaymaker took Mr Whitworth's father and stepmother to see the note, but he was excluded.

Hugh Davies QC, representing Det Sgt Slaymaker, said it is now accepted that not showing the full note to him earlier was a "mistake" and a "failure on behalf of the police".

Mr Waumsley first saw the note at the first inquest for his partner in 2015, the court heard.

Stephen Port was given a whole-life prison term for the murders of four young men

He described also hearing other new information that day, including that police had not tested a bedsheet found with Mr Whitworth's body and that handwriting on the "suicide note" had not been fully checked.

"I felt as if they took the suicide note at face value. I believe they didn't do any more than that," he said.

He was asked by his barrister Anton van Dellen if he might have been treated differently if he was in a "straight unmarried relationship" rather than a gay one.

Mr Waumsley said he believed he was treated differently, saying "they dismissed me in every single way" and it was because we were a "gay unmarried couple".

Jurors then heard from the detective who oversaw investigations into the deaths of Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth - who admitted a series of personal failings.

Gabriel Kovari and Daniel Whitworth's bodies were found in the graveyard of St Margaret's Church

Det Insp Rolf Schamberger prepared reports for their first inquests in June 2015.

Giving evidence, he accepted providing wrong information to a coroner, overlooking key information that would have disproved claims from the fake suicide note and not ensuring forensic tests took place.

In 2015 he told the coroner a diary had been used to confirm Mr Whitworth's handwriting on the suicide note - but no diary was ever found.

Questioned over a possible link to the death of Mr Walgate, he said "there was consideration given to there being a link. But to the best of my knowledge, no link was ever established".

'Sexual swabs'

He then told jurors it was "hard to say" what he had meant six years ago.

In 2015 he confirmed no testing ever took place on a bedsheet found with Mr Whitworth's body, telling the coroner that the "circumstances at the time indicated towards no other external parties being involved".

He told jurors he could not really explain this statement.

Det Insp Schamberger also admitted not submitting "sexual swabs" for tests despite the fake suicide note referring to Mr Whitworth having spent the night with an unidentified man.

The inquests continue.