Families of the four victims of serial killer Stephen Port, including Kent's Daniel Whitworth, have welcomed a coroner's reports that there were several areas of concern over investigations into their deaths.

Mr Whitworth, from Gravesend, Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari and Jack Taylor all died at the hands of Port, who drugged them with overdoses of GHB before dumping their bodies near his east London flat between June 2014 and September 2015.

Now, just weeks after BBC One aired its Four Lives drama about the killings, the families of the victims have thanked Sarah Munro QC for publishing a prevention for future deaths report earlier today.

Solicitor Neil Hudgell said: “The families remain grateful to the coroner for her detailed consideration of the many issues raised throughout the inquests.

“It is clear to see from the length of the prevention of future deaths report that there remain very many areas still to be addressed, not just by the Metropolitan Police, but by police forces nationally.”

Basic errors by a string of detectives left Port free to carry out a series of murders as well as drug and sexually assault more than a dozen other men.

In December, inquest jurors found that “fundamental failures” by the police were likely to have contributed to three of the men’s deaths.

Ms Munro said she had been “extremely concerned and disappointed” to hear evidence of the blunders.

Setting out overarching issues in the case, she said: “Perhaps the most striking of these is the large number of very serious and very basic investigative failings.

“I have been extremely concerned and disappointed by the evidence that I have heard about these series of errors.”

When the inquest opened last year, the family of Kent chef Daniel Whitworth paid tribute to their "pride and joy" and spoke of the pain over his death being treated as a suicide.

Former Dartford Grammar student Daniel, 21, was killed by Port in 2014 after they met via the gay dating app Grindr.

'My grandson, Daniel, was a total joy...'

His grandmother Barbara Whitworth said: "My grandson, Daniel, was a total joy, from being a cheeky, mischevious child, to a caring, loving adult."

Following the inquest the coroner acknowledged that the Metropolitan Police had made efforts to identify the causes of the mistakes and make changes, but said addressing a lack of professional curiosity was a key lesson.

Seventeen officers were investigated by the watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over the deaths, and nine were found to have performance failings.

But none of the nine were disciplined or lost their jobs, and five have since been promoted.

Ms Munro highlighted that the inquests had identified officers’ mistakes that were not uncovered by the IOPC investigation.

All but one of the 17 officers under investigation gave no comment interviews to the IOPC, as is their legal right, but several were made to give detailed oral evidence in person to the inquests.

The report also expressed concern over how deaths are classified as “unexplained” rather than suspicious.

Mr Kovari’s death was classed as “unexplained but not suspicious” within five hours of his body being discovered, despite an inspector later admitting they had no idea how he had died, while Mr Whitworth’s death was also classed as non-suspicious on the day he was found, even though investigators had not properly checked that a fake suicide note found with his body was genuine.

The letter had been planted by Port, falsely claiming that Mr Whitworth had accidentally killed Mr Kovari, when in fact the two did not know each other and were not together on the night Mr Kovari died.

This term is still used in Met guidance, and Ms Munro said: “The term ‘unexplained’ as used in the current policy may once again distract officers from the correct and necessary approach, which is for the death to be treated as suspicious unless and until the police investigation has established that it is not.”

Families of the four men believed that homophobia played a part in the failings, and while the coroner did not make her own finding on the issue she said she agreed with a report by the IOPC that suggested “the possibility of assumptions being made about the lifestyle of young gay men and the potential vulnerability of men cannot be ignored, and may reveal that intersectionality was present in policing in 2014/2015, and may still be”.

She also found that police leadership linked to the cases had been inadequate at inspector and sergeant level, including one inspector writing closing reports for Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth’s deaths that “contained serious material inaccuracies”.

The report acknowledged efforts made by the Met to improve use of internal crime recording systems, but said the coroner remained concerned that officers might not properly log lines of investigation, actions and outcomes.

She said that guidelines on when specialist murder squad detectives should take over investigations from local officers should be made clearer, and said that after another coroner expressed concern about gaps in the investigations into Mr Kovari and Mr Whitworth’s deaths in 2015, this should have led the police to “reconsider the adequacy of their investigation”.