Father of gay serial killings suspect Stephen Port: 'We just can't take much more'

Accused: Stephen Port, 41, is accused of four killings over 15 months in Barking, East London
Sky News
Sebastian Mann20 October 2015
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The elderly father of a man accused of using gay dating websites to target and kill four victims has said he and his wife "just can't take much more".

Stephen Port, 40, is accused of drugging and murdering four young men before dumping three of their bodies in and around the churchyard at St Margaret's Church, North Street, Barking.

Today his father, 73-year-old Albert, said he and his wife Joan, 74, were trying not to think about the allegations faced by their son because of their old-age.

Speaking from his home in Dagenham, he said: "We're trying not to think about it because of our ages.

"We just want to keep out of the way, because of our ages. We just can't take it. The less we know the better. We have got to carry on.

"We are old now. We just can't take much more.

"The police haven't told us nothing and they won't tell us nothing because we are elderly. They don't want to bother us because we are elderly. We just want to keep out of it. We don't want to know.

"I know that's my son, but what people do or what happens - I can't control you and tell you what to do, and you can't tell your family what to do. They are old enough. That's life ain't it?

"The less we hear the better. That's the way I think it's best for us."

Mr Port said he had visited his son on Sunday night, when he took money and books as well as a magazine on space, but hasn't spoken to him since.

Forty-year-old Port, of Cooke Street, Barking, in east London, appeared in court on Monday charged with four counts of murder and four counts of administering a poison with intent to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm.

It is alleged he gave the men large amounts of the party drug GHB which they overdosed on. He then dumped their bodies, it is claimed.

He allegedly killed Anthony Walgate, 23, a fashion and design student at Middlesex University, Gabriel Kovari, 22, originally from Slovakia but living in Lewisham, Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, Kent, and Jack Taylor, 25, a forklift truck driver from Dagenham, east London.

Asked how he felt about the four young men who lost their lives, his father Mr Port said: "I don't know nothing about that, I don't think about that at all. I don't want to know."

His son is due to appear at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, but Mr Port said he and his wife Joan, 74, have no plans to go, saying "I'm in no way fit".

Mr Port said his son used to work as a chef in east London, and never went to university.

Describing his son, he said: "He was ordinary, like any other person. He was quiet. He was just normal like anyone else."

Additional reporting by the Press Association

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