Police failed to follow up two different leads that could have led them to serial killer Stephen Port before his last two victims died, an inquest has heard.

Port, now 46,

Police failed to follow up two different leads that could have led them to serial killer Stephen Port before his last two victims died, an inquest has heard.

Port, now 46, will be in jail for the rest of his life after killing Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, between June 2014 and September 2015.

Inquests are being held into the men's deaths to determine whether lives could have been saved had police acted differently.

Mr Kovari was found dead in a graveyard in Barking, east London, on August 28 2014, while Mr Whitworth was found just over three weeks later on September 20.

Inquest jurors at Barking Town Hall on Tuesday heard that investigators were told after Mr Kovari's death that his boyfriend Thierry Amodio had received messages from a man called Jon Luck claiming to have had sex with him before he died.

Police failed to follow up two different leads that could have led them to serial killer Stephen Port (pictured) before his last two victims died, an inquest has heard 

An inquest heard if police had followed up leads, Port could have been caught before the deaths of Daniel Whitworth (left) and Jack Taylor (right) 

Mr Kovari had also sent photos and the address of Port's flat to a friend called Carl, explaining that he was staying there.

Henrietta Hill QC, for the men's families, told Acting Detective Inspector Rolf Schamberger, who supervised the investigations into Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth's deaths, that had the leads been followed up Port could have been caught earlier.

She said: 'If the police had either followed up who Jon Luck was or followed up who Carl was, either one of those routes would have taken them to Stephen Port before Daniel died. Do you understand?'

Mr Schamberger replied: 'Yes, I understand.'

Port planted a fake suicide note on Mr Whitworth's body, falsely confessing to the murder of Mr Kovari in order to cover his tracks.

But the jury heard that the similarities between the deaths of first victim fashion student Mr Walgate, who was found outside Port's flat on June 19 2014, and Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth should have aroused the suspicions of police.

Anthony Walgate (left) and Gabriel Kovari (right) were also victims of Port

As well as this, Ms Hill outlined a series of failings by investigators, including:

• Failing to carry out key forensic tests including on the bed sheet on which Mr Whitworth was found, his clothes, so-called sex swabs taken from his body, the drugs bottle planted on him, and Mr Kovari's sunglasses;
• Failing to properly examine Mr Kovari's social media accounts to see if friends could provide useful information;
• Not obtaining full phone data that would have shown Mr Whitworth was not in Barking on the night of Mr Kovari's death;
• Failing to properly verify the handwriting on the fake suicide note;
• Failing to follow up information provided by the men's loved ones about their movements before their deaths.

The inquests heard that three detective constables had 'batted away' concerns raised by friends and family that the deaths of Mr Walgate, Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth may be linked.

Ms Hill asked the witness: 'Your team ignored sensible suggestions from members of the public that there was a link, isn't that right?'

Me Schamberger replied: 'It definitely seems that way.'

She went on: 'Every single one of those members of the public had cracked this in a way that none of you had.'

He answered: 'Those links ultimately were true.'

Ms Hill said: 'They were all right, and you were all wrong.'

Mr Schamberger said: 'We had not considered them.'

He admitted that there had been 'shocking failings' in the investigations, that were 'significantly incompetent'.

Ms Hill put to him: 'Had any one or any combination of these failings not occurred, Jack Taylor would not have been killed?'

He replied: 'That is very possible.'

The officer then apologised for the failings, saying: 'It's hugely regrettable and I'm very sorry for how things transpired.

'It must have been very difficult for those involved to try to come to terms with very difficult facts that then turned out not to be the case.'

The jury had earlier heard that Mr Schamberger felt the way teams were working was not safe because they were so understaffed.

On Monday, Mr Whitworth's boyfriend Daniel Waumsley said he felt 'pushed out' by police investigating his death ' because the pair were an unmarried gay couple'.

He told jurors he felt excluded by investigators and was not allowed to see an apparent suicide note left by Mr Whitworth until the year after he was found dead. 

Mr Waumsley said: 'If it was a straight couple I wouldn’t have been pushed out as much as I was at the time.

'They dismissed me in every single way. I believe and I stand by it, it was because we were a gay unmarried couple.'

Mr Whitworth’s body was discovered in Barking, east London, on September 20, 2014, after he was given a fatal overdose of the drug GHB by Port.  

The serial killer left a fake suicide note on Mr Whitworth’s body falsely claiming that he had taken his own life after accidentally killing another Mr Kovari.

Mr Waumsley said the police should have verified the handwriting on the note more carefully, rather than just asking the 21-year-old’s grieving parents.

He said: 'I just felt that they took the suicide note at face value. I believe they didn’t do any more than that. That was my thought on it.

'I thought they could have done more, they could have at least checked the handwriting and made sure that it was correct, and not just asked people at the time who were grieving and who are not in that profession looking at handwriting.'

Ricky Waumsley (pictured) was speaking at Barking Town Hall on Monday at the inquest into his boyfriend Daniel Whitworth’s death

In the days after the young chef’s death, the police refused to show Mr Waumsley the suicide note.

He said: 'I was really angry because he was my partner of four years and I wanted to see what he had to say for himself.'

On September 30, 2014, Mr Waumsley visited the site where Mr Whitworth had been found with his father Adam and stepmother Amanda.

Police officers took the parents off to discuss the investigation privately without Mr Waumsley, which he said 'really p***ed me off and made me feel pushed out by the police'.

In the days after the young chef’s death, the police refused to show Mr Waumsley the suicide note (pictured)

It was only in the following year at the first inquest into Mr Whitworth’s death when Mr Waumsley saw the note for the first time, and said it was 'really impersonal', did not mention any family members and he could not be sure it was his partner’s handwriting.

During the 2015 inquest it also emerged that officers had not DNA tested the bed sheet on which Mr Whitworth had been found or the drugs bottle that was discovered with his body.

There was also some bruising on his chest that suggested manual handling but this had not been investigated.

Outside the hearing, Mr Waumsley told officers Paul Slaymaker and Rolf Schamberger 'You didn’t do your f****** job properly.'

He told the police that Mr Whitworth had never done drugs apart from one joint in Amsterdam and he had never heard of the drug GHB before Daniel died.

But when Mr Whitworth’s stepmother Amanda had asked the police what the drug was they had told her to ask Mr Waumsley 'because he should know'.

The 46-year-old, who will spend the rest of his life behind bars for murdering four men and sexually assaulting several others, began taking GHB in late 2013 

Jurors were read part of a witness statement he gave to the police watchdog in 2017, then called the Independent Police Complaints Commission, that said: 'I didn’t understand how they could just brush her question off and say that a typical gay person would know about drugs like that.

'I believe the police made too many assumptions from the content of the letter and not just because Daniel was gay.

'I think they must have looked at the letter and taken it at face value and thought that was job done.' 

Inquests into the men’s deaths are now being heard to determine whether lives could have been saved had police acted differently.