Stephen Port, an alleged serial killer, told a jury he panicked when he woke to find a male escort, whom he had hired for the night, cold and rigid in his bed and did not want to believe he could be dead.

Describing how he moved fashion student Anthony Walgate, 23, from his east London flat, Port, 41, said he had initially lied to police because the shock “had hit me hard”.



Port, a former chef, is charged with murdering four young men at his flat by allegedly administering fatal doses of the date-rape drug GHB to them, to feed his fetish for sex with unconscious young males. It is alleged he dumped their bodies near his home in Barking, east London: three in a churchyard and one just outside the communal entrance to his one-bedroomed flat.

He denies four charges of murder as well as charges of drugging and raping other men he met through gay dating websites.



The jury has heard that the body of Walgate, the first of the men to die, was found in June 2014. Giving evidence, quietly spoken Port, who also worked as a male escort to earn extra money, said he had agreed to pay the student £800 to stay overnight while his partner was away.

Port told an Old Bailey court that before sex, Walgate wanted to “take something” although Port did not know what he took. “He said he was on antidepressants and that had killed his sex drive completely.” Later Walgate again took something “because he was losing his high and wanted to get some more stuff,” Port said.



Port added Walgate was sick and became “very high, very agitated, kind of hyper”. He said he left him fully clothed in bed and went to work, but he was still there in the bed when he returned later that night. He said Walgate was making a “gurgling” noise. “I thought he was in a deep sleep still, so I left him.”



Port said he also got into the bed but woke up in the night. “He was really cold. His arm was still and rigid … I didn’t want to think about him being dead,” he said.

He said he had called an ambulance and carried Walgate outside. Asked why, he replied it was easier for the ambulance to see him and Port did not want his boyfriend, who was shortly due to return to the flat, to discover he had hired an escort.



He admitted he had lied to police about finding Walgate outside his flat because when police told him he was dead “that hit me – the shock – that hit hard”.



He denied administering any drugs to Walgate.



The prosecution has alleged that Port had a fetish for boyish men – known as “twinks” – and for having sex with drugged young men.

Asked by his lawyer, David Etherington QC, if he enjoyed sex with men while they were asleep, Port replied. “It’s nice at first, less moving about, you can take your time.



“It gets a bit boring and gets a bit lonely: like having sex on your own, I suppose.” He would have consensual sex with an unconscious boyfriend but not with a stranger, he said, because they might “wake up and punch me or something”.



He said he was attracted to “twinks” because of “their energy, their life, their youth, beautiful, just nice to be with”. Asked why he wore a toupee, he said “just to be better looking, for confidence”.



He told the jury he had taken poppers but started experimenting with drugs in 2013 with a boyfriend, first taking “meow meow” – or mephedrone – and later combining it with G – or GHB. “It was the feeling you could go on for hours and hours having sex. You didn’t want to stop. It was continuous,” he said.



Of GHB he said: “To start with it could knock you out for an hour but you would wake up feeling horny and wanting to have sex for hours.” The combination of the two gave him a “hyper high for about an hour,” he said and he started taking drugs every weekend.

He described getting into casual sex though “the ease of internet access” when he moved out of his parents’ home – where he had had no internet access – into his own flat in 2006.

He said he enjoyed watching group sex pornography with consenting “twinks” “but not necessarily doing it … I prefer one-on-one, always have.”

The case continues.

