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Three of the victims: Jack Taylor, Daniel Whitworth, Anthony Walgate.
A chef who "had a propensity for sex with unconscious men" drugged the victims he met on gay networking sites before sexually assaulting and killing them, a court has heard.
Stephen Port, 41, from Barking, east London, appeared at the Old Bailey on Wednesday accused of four counts of murder, seven of rape, four of assault by penetration, and 10 of administering a substance with intent.
The court heard that he used social media sites, including the gay dating app Grindr, to set up a series of one night stands in which he allegedly spiked his dates' drinks or injected them with enough GHB - known as liquid ecstasy - to knock them out.
At the time, Port described himself as "70 percent more gay than straight" and was attracted to young boyish looking men in their late teens or early 20s referred to as "twinks," jurors were told.
The prosecution says between 2012 and 2015 he committed a series of sexual offences against 12 young men, four of whom died.
The bodies of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, and Daniel Whitworth were discovered in Barking between June and September of 2014. The body of another man, Jack Taylor, was also discovered in Barking in September of 2015.
Port is accused of dragging their bodies from his flat and leaving them in or near a churchyard.
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