Inquests into the deaths of four men murdered by Barking serial killer Stephen Port are due to start this week.

Port took the lives of Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, Jack Taylor and Anthony Walgate.

All four gay men were drugged with GHB and raped by Port, before being dumped near his home in Cooke Street.

%image(14870689, type="article-full", alt="Clockwise from top left: Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, Jack Taylor and Anthony Walgate.")

Original inquests into the deaths of Mr Kovari, 22, from Slovakia, and Mr Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, resulted in open verdicts, but these were quashed following Port's conviction for murder.

The deaths of Mr Walgate, 23, from Hull, and Mr Taylor, 25, from Dagenham, had been treated as non-suspicious.

Judge Sarah Munro is to preside over inquests into all four deaths in front of a jury at Barking Town Hall.

Here is a timeline of events leading up to the hearings.

%image(14871528, type="article-full", alt="Port dumped the body of Anthony Walgate outside his flat in Cooke Street.")

June 2014: Port kills Mr Walgate, lying about the circumstances of the death before later being jailed for perverting the course of justice.

September 2014: Port dumps the body of Mr Kovari in the grounds of St Margaret’s Church in Barking, which is less than 500 metres from his home.

%image(14871969, type="article-full", alt="A screenshot of one of Port's profiles on Fitlads which is a social network for gay and bisexual men in the UK.")

Mr Whitworth is dumped in the same place along with a suicide note planted on him, which Port forged.

September 2015: Mr Taylor, 25, is found dead near the grounds of the same church.

October 2015: Port is charged with four counts of murder and administering poison.

%image(14871970, type="article-full", alt="Port dumped three bodies in or near the grounds of St Margaret's Church. He told police he never went there because he found the place "spooky".")

November 2016: Port is found guilty of all four murder charges. A jury convicts him of 22 offences against 11 men - including the four murders and four rapes, 10 counts of administering a substance and four sex assaults. He was cleared on three counts of rape.

Port, then aged 41, is sentenced to life.

July 2019: The Independent Office for Police Conduct finds that none of the officers involved in the initial investigation into Port's crimes breached professional standards to justify disciplinary proceedings.

November 2019: Counsel to the inquests Andrew O'Connor QC explains that part of the coroner's investigation will be into whether the police were institutionally homophobic.

January 2021: The inquests are pushed back by nine months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They had already been delayed by a year.

October 2021: Hearings are to take place with a jury due to be sworn in on Friday.