A British chef went on trial on Wednesday accused of drugging and murdering four young men he met on gay networking sites, then dumping their bodies in or near a graveyard close to his home in London.
Stephen Port, 41, invited the men back to his flat and spiked their drinks or injected them with drugs so he could have sex with them while they were unconscious, a jury at the Old Bailey in London heard.
Four of his victims - Anthony Walgate, 23; Gabriel Kovari, 22; Daniel Whitworth, 21, and 25-year-old Jack Taylor - died of overdoses and Port is accused of dragging their bodies outside, planting bottles of the party drug GHB on some of them and writing a fake suicide note for another.
He is accused of sexually assaulting or raping another eight victims who survived.
"In the pursuit of nothing more than his own sexual gratification, (Port) variously drugged, sexually assaulted and in four cases killed young gay men he had invited back to his flat," prosecuting lawyer Jonathan Rees said.
He said Port described himself as "70 per cent more gay than straight" with a preference for young, smaller, boyish-type men "often referred to as 'twinks'", who he met on social networking sites such as Grindr, the Daily Mirror reported.
