The Metropolitan police could be failing to spot serial killers and identify murders because they are not properly investigating unexpected deaths, the inspector of constabulary has warned.
Matt Parr’s comments came after a damning report concluded Britain’s largest force had still not learned from its “calamitous litany of failures” in the case of the serial killer Stephen Port – and warned “history could repeat itself”.
Port, 48, drugged, raped and murdered four men – Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25 – before dumping their bodies near his flat in Barking, east London, between June 2014 and September 2015.
Parr said the murders of the last three men had been “entirely preventable” had the Met’s investigation been “competent and professional from the outset”. He said despite “glaringly obvious” similarities, officers failed to link the cases or even realise the men had been murdered at first.
He added: “Port went on to kill three more people [when] they [police] should have, frankly, had him locked up after the first murder.
“The point I’m making is if they miss, [or] if they’re not good enough at identifying, or they’re not suspicious enough about unexpected deaths in the first place, the chance of missing the odd isolated one, or indeed, another serial killer cannot be discounted.
“I couldn’t possibly put a figure on how often it happens, but it stands to reason that it happens occasionally.”
His comments came in response to a scathing report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), which found the Met had not learned from its failings in the Port case and must urgently improve. It was commissioned after inquests in 2021 concluded that fundamental failings by the Met “probably” contributed to the deaths of Port’s last three victims.
“They have not learned enough from the failings of eight years ago, and starkly, what went wrong there could happen again,” Parr said.
The HMICFRS report found the Met had made some improvements since the Port case, but that many of the officers responding to deaths were still “inexperienced, untrained and poorly supervised”. Parr said it was “extraordinary” that officers admitted relying on “luck” to identify links between deaths at a local level.
He said the HMICFRS inspection reviewed 100 death probes carried out by the Met and found evidence of poor training and supervision, as well as “dreadful” record keeping. Parr also criticised the “deluge” of “really confusing” guidance and policies for officers – as well as “inadequate” intelligence and crime analysis.
Parr, His Majesty’s inspector of constabulary, said the inspection found that some officers failed to carry out basic tasks such as police national database searches and house-to-house inquiries.
He added: “We found very little evidence that even the most obvious protected characteristics, such as race, were recorded in the death reports. This mirrors a lack of investigation back in 2014-15 where with Port the police failed even to identify that the victims were gay at first.
“The majority of records we saw were poor, contained many omissions, including some where potentially vital evidence such as drugs and suspicious injuries was only discovered at the mortuary. [Police] hadn’t even looked into the pockets of someone who had been found dead.”
Parr said the Met is called to attend 30 unexpected deaths in London on a typical day, amounting to about 10,000 a year, with the force dealing with around two or three homicides a week. He said if a death is identified as a homicide, about 92% of cases are taken to court and the conviction rate is high.
When asked if the Met could be missing identifying murders and serial killers, he said: “None of us know. But I think when you look at the numbers of [unexpected] deaths … it seems to me likely, if not certain, that among the deaths that they do not classify as homicides that there are some …
“I think what this inspection has shown us is even eight years after Port, they’re still not tight enough and the risk of a homicide being misidentified and not recognised is way higher than it should be.”
He added: “It’s very difficult to reassure the public that something like Port could never happen again and indeed homicides aren’t being missed occasionally.”
The watchdog made 20 recommendations, including calling on Met officers to use more intelligence information when investigating deaths and improving the quality of family liaison support.
HMICFRS found that the Met’s interaction with the families of Port’s victims “was uncaring and, at times, virtually nonexistent”.
Solicitor Neil Hudgell, who represented the victims’ families at the inquest, renewed calls for a public inquiry into the case as he said the report reveals the “same shortcomings still exist today and similar mistakes could be made”.
“It has become abundantly clear that this force cannot be trusted to make changes and improvements itself and the government must step in and oversee proper change across this force,” he said.
“If that doesn’t happen, more serious offenders will slip through the net, and more innocent lives will be lost due to the most basic of policing failures.”
HMICFRS said it was impossible to conclude if homophobia played a part in the failings in the case but added that “undoubtedly there were, and still are, homophobic officers” in the Met and that there was “a lack of understanding of the lifestyles of those they were investigating”.
It comes in the wake of a report by Louise Casey, which highlighted institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia at the Met.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who commissioned the HMICFRS report, said: “Every Londoner – irrespective of sexuality, gender or race – has the right to have their allegations of crime taken seriously by police and the Met must ensure the quality of their initial investigations is of a higher standard.
“Never again should the integrity of a case be compromised by the victim’s circumstances or background. This is absolutely vital to rebuilding the confidence of London’s LGBTQI+ community in our police.”
The Met assistant commissioner Louisa Rolfe said the force is “sincere in our desire to make real change to minimise the chance of a case like this ever happening again”.
She added: “We know we fell short in this case and the families did not get the service they needed or deserved. It is important we look again at this area to see what more we need to do to support families through such difficult times.
“We will fully consider the recommendations made by HMICFRS and ensure these are not just fully addressed but embedded into our working practices.”
