‘The fact it was Grindr isn’t relevant’: users debate app’s role in Stephen Port murders

The murders of four young men by Stephen Port, the serial killer sentenced to life in prison on Friday, have given rise to a debate among users of the gay dating app Grindr.

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One man who matched with Stephen Port on the app has rubbished what he sees as attempts to blame Grindr for the deaths, but others claim more must be done to protect people meeting prospective partners online.

Benjamin Wilson, 29, was living in Barking, close to the graveyard around St Margaret’s church, at the time Port dumped the bodies of three of his four victims there after drugging them with GHB and raping them in his flat.

“I was in a relationship with two guys and we’d all messaged him,” Wilson said. “He had a very attractive profile photo, which was was not very representative as it turns out.

“It didn’t go any further than that because we weren’t his type and there was perhaps a little bit too much consent – which sounds bleak … He wasn’t interested in people who were approaching him. I wonder if between me having a beard, and me being interested, that actually is the thing which means I am alive.”

Nevertheless, Wilson, a writer who now lives in Cornwall, said attempts by the police to pin blame for Port’s killings on Grindr and the culture of online hook-ups were “victim blaming”. He saw it as an attempt by police to shirk responsibility for their alleged failings in investigating the case.

Wilson said: “The fact it was Grindr isn’t really relevant, there’s always been sexual violence. But the fact it’s treated that way basically seems like a way to let people off the hook, like: ‘They were on Grindr, they were having chemsex, these deviant homosexual things.’ When actually the issue is that there was a man murdering people, there is a pervasive culture of sexual violence, and the police didn’t act appropriately.”

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Monty Moncrieff, chief executive of London Friend – a health and well-being charity for London’s LGBT community, said apps were merely playing a role that had previously been filled by personal ads in newspapers or dating websites. “What role the apps have been playing to facilitate that is that it’s just been the medium through which he’s met them and the intention’s been there,” Moncrieff said. “He hasn’t done it as a result of the apps, the apps haven’t made him do that.”

Michael (a pseudonym), a 50-year-old who has been a regular user of Grindr, said his worst recent experience had been when a man he met, who had been heavily using drugs, suddenly decided to kick him out. He was left on the doorstep in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at 5am. He is visually impaired and did not know how to get home.

Such experiences have led him to take precautions before meeting anyone. “Usually I try to chat to the person for a long while, and if we are going to meet I try to meet in a public place first. I try to get details to give to some of my close mates, about where I’ve gone, what phone number I’ve gone to, address and all that lot,” he said.

Others are not so careful, he said, particularly when there are drugs involved. “You know there is a lot of guys who are just – I don’t want to say the word seducing, not inducing – but they offer you so much, all the time, constantly, and sometimes you wonder: ‘Hang on, what’s your intention?’,” Michael said. “I’ve seen how some people just literally get like a rag doll, and there’s no enjoyment in that, when the other person doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Despite his link to the Port murders, Wilson said he felt that in many ways meeting men through apps like Grindr was safer than the alternative, which was cruising to meet partners.

“That’s almost certainly going to involve alcohol, it’s going to involve going through areas where you are more at risk,” he said. “Being online gives you a lot more control. You know exactly where you are going, you can tell people ‘I am going to 54 West Street.’

“You are generally sober, or if you are not that’s been your choice – you are not pushed by your environment into drinking. And you don’t have to make yourself a target in the wider sense. There’s always a risk that a stranger could be a danger, but not more so than if you are going to a bar.”