An inspection of the Metropolitan Police Service’s response to lessons from the Stephen Port murders

Between June 2014 and September 2015, Stephen Port drugged, sexually assaulted and murdered four young men in East London. Despite the similarities between the deaths, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) failed to recognise that they might be connected.

On 3 December 2021, Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, requested that HMICFRS conduct an inspection following the inquest into these murders.

The purpose of this inspection was to establish whether the MPS has learned lessons. In particular, we sought to establish whether this could happen again.

Our inspection took place between May and November 2022. We carried out fieldwork in the MPS and visited 14 central teams, 4 basic command units and 2 major investigation teams.

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Terms of reference: HMICFRS inspection following the East London Inquests touching the deaths of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor

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Met Police’s failure to stop Stephen Port murders could happen again, inspectorate finds