Is this British man a gay dating app serial killer?

A forty-year-old British man has been charged with drugging and killing four young men he met on a gay dating app.

Stephen Port is accused of poisoning the men with fatal doses of party drug GHB. It’s believed that he lured them to his East London flat through Grindr.

After allegedly giving them the drug, he’s said to have raped them while they were unconscious and then dumped the bodies near his home.

The murders took place over a 15 month period, said prosecutors, after Port appeared in the Barkingside Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

According to reports, in addition to working as a chef, he also made money on the side as a sex worker and had an advert on an escort site.

His victims are alleged to be Anthony Walgate, 23; Gabriel Kovari, 22; Daniel Whitworth, 21, and; Jack Taylor, 25.

An apparent suicide note was found in Whitworth’s hands, stating: “I can’t go on anymore, I took the life of my friend Gabriel [Kovari].

“We were just having some fun at a mate’s place and I got carried away and gave him another shot of G[HB]. It was an accident, I know I will go to prison if I go to the police.

“I have taken what G[HB] I had left, with sleeping pills – if it does kill me it’s what I deserve,” read the note.

Police, however, believe that Port wrote the letter and placed it with the young man’s body in a bid to avoid getting caught.

Port’s mother told Daily Mail she believes that her son is not guilty. “I am still shaking. I don’t think he has done it. He will have got involved and taken the blame for other people,” she said.

The police have been criticised for at first not connecting the murders. In a statement, the Metropolitan Police Service said it had voluntarily referred its handling of the case for investigation to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.