Sisters of Stephen Port victim recall how they had to investigate murder themselves

Jack Taylor, 25, was GHB serial killer Stephen Port’s final victim, before he charged with, eventually found guilty of, four murders. He was murdered almost one year after Port’s first victim.

Speaking to the Victoria Derbyshire Programme today (November 24), his two sisters Donna and Jen paid tribute to Jack, and criticised the police’s handling of the investigation.

Describing him as “loving,” and “fund to be around,” the pair discussed how they grew worried after Jack vanished from his parents home on the day before his body was found.

Jack had been out Saturday night (September 12 2015), but had returned home after. His parents believed him to be safe at home, but the following morning he wasn’t there.

“Mum had called me to say that Jack still wasn’t home and we had decided that we would start making some calls, because obviously it was very out of character for Jack,” Donna explained.

“I was still on the phone to mum when the police turned up. Initially I heard the police ask if they were Jack’s mum and dad, and then I heard mum scream. And I kind of new what that scream meant.”

The police incorrectly believed Jack to have taken an overdose, but, believing that to be out of character for Jack, the sisters began investigating. “We knew it wasn’t right,” Jen said.

Donna explained how the went through Jack’s Facebook, and asked his friends if they’d seen him, before searching the internet to see if any similar cases had been reported.

“That’s when found out there was other people that had been found,” Donna said, referring to Port’s other victims, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Anthony Walgate.

We were just told that Jack was found up against a church wall, and that he had died of taking a drug overdose. We knew that wasn’t Jack, so we knew instantly there was so much more to this.”

25-year-old Jack Taylor was killed in September 2015 - over a year after the discovery of Port's first victim.

The sisters took the information to the police, but felt they were not taking seriously.

“They were just going to settle it as Jack had taken an overdose,” Jen said.

“It was seen as gay drugged men who had just sat there, done an overdose, and that’s that. As if it were normal,” Donna added.

“We shouldn’t have had to go through all what we did to prove that our brother didn’t sit there and do that, that should have been somebody finding that out.”

Investigations into Stephen Port’s murders have been widely criticised, with LGBT rights campaigner Peter Tatchell accusing the Met Police of failing to link the deaths sooner because of the victims’ sexual identities.

“If four young middle class women had been murdered in Mayfair, I believe the police would have made a public appeal much sooner and mounted a far more comprehensive investigation, the veteran LGBT campaigner said in a statement yesterday.

“The killing of low income gay men in working class Barking was treated very differently. Police officers stand accused of class, gender and sexuality bias.”

In the wake of the investigation’s failings, Scotland Yard have revealed that 17 of its officers are the subject of an Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation into the handling of the case. Today, the Police called for dating apps to do more to protect users safety.

You can watch the Victoria Derbyshire Programme’s full segment on the police investigation into Stephen Port’s killings here.

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