Stephen Port: Serial killer was 'obsessed' with drug rape

Serial killer Stephen Port was obsessed with messaging men on hook-up sites and watching drug rape pornography, an inquest has heard.

Port, who is serving a whole-life term for murdering four men and sexually assaulting a number of others, began taking the drug GHB in late 2013.

Inquests are examining whether the Met Police's investigations into their murders were adequate.

The force originally believed the four deaths to be unconnected.

Families pay tribute to young men murdered by Port

Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor, who were all in their early 20s, were killed by overdoses of GHB administered by Port between June 2014 and September 2015. He dumped their bodies near his flat in Barking, east London.

GHB (gammahydroxybutrate) has a medical use in the treatment of narcolepsy, a rare sleep disorder.

It depresses the central nervous system, causing drowsiness and euphoria; and it can reduce inhibitions.

There is only a small difference between the dose causing the desired effects and the dose leading to severe overdose and death. If not sufficiently diluted, it can also burn the part of the body via which it is administered.

The inquests are taking place at Barking Town Hall, just yards from the east London flat where Port's victims were given fatal overdoses.

Det Insp Mark Richards told the jury on Wednesday that analysis of Port's laptop, originally seized when officers were first investigating the death of fashion student Mr Walgate, showed hundreds of thousands of lines of messaging about sex, pornography and drug taking.

"It was absolutely incessant. It was all day, every day. There were hundreds of thousands of lines of messages because he was obsessed. He had a real obsession with drug rape pornography."

Patterns in the data emerged to show Port would pause in his messaging or viewing for around half-an-hour to go and meet men at Barking station and take them back to his flat.

He would then continue viewing the material once the men were in his home.

The court heard detectives sifted through details of nearly 60 other deaths to consider whether Port had killed more, and also concluded he had no accomplice.

Their theory was that 6ft 5in Port had wrapped his victims' bodies in bed sheets and carried them to the sites where they were found.

The inquests continue.