And BBC News has been unable to verify whether Mr McHale and Mr Gough were targeted by the same gang.
Thames Valley Police told the BBC an investigation into blackmail is ongoing and that inquiries are open.
The force made a mandatory referral to the IOPC in June 2024 because Mr McHale had been in contact with police before his death.
The IOPC deemed no further action needed to be taken and no misconduct investigation was required.
A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police told the BBC it had not received a formal complaint regarding the case but that it would be "inappropriate to comment on individual grievances outside the formal complaints process".
'Not easy crimes to solve'
Natalie Sherborn, head of White-collar Defence and Investigations at law firm Withers, said that dating apps had been "found wanting" in their response to crimes being carried out via their platforms.
"Romance fraud, harassment or blackmail are not easy crimes to solve," she said.
"There is a digital footprint but it's not always straightforward.
He said suspected victims of crime would be "taken seriously and treated with sensitivity".
'He was just my rock, and he was gone'
Charities have said that the true scale of crimes on dating apps such as Grindr is impossible to know and that police responses to such crimes can be varied.
"We know there are good police officers," said Bridget Symonds, director of services for LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop, "but it really is a lottery and it depends on who you're dealing with, where you are in the country."
There are no official stats to indicate how many dating app crimes are reported every year.
The BBC also spoke to the family of another man who died after being blackmailed on Grindr.
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In 2020, at least 100 men in the Indian city of Gurugram, including CEOs and senior corporate executives, were lured, robbed and blackmailed by a gang who took explicit photos of them after they met on the same app.
“Grindr takes the privacy and safety of our users extremely seriously.
In a number of cases brought to Ghorpade’s attention, victims said they had negative experiences reporting to law enforcement.
“The police were very dismissive.
“He sent sexually explicit photographs and videos to the victims’ friends, family members (including at least one victim’s mother, at least one victim’s brother, and at least one victim’s sister), employers and acquaintances, and also posted sexually explicit photographs and videos widely on the internet.
“Multiple victims had not publicly disclosed their sexual orientation, which Uwadiae’s actions disclosed, contrary to their wishes.
“Historians have attributed this new sensitivity to the decline of an older sexual culture in which same-sex passions had not been as negatively viewed.”
In other words, the British were starting to understand men who had sex with men as a separate class of men, different from those who had sex with women. On average, scammers may get over 50,000 INR ($625) to 100,000 INR ($1251) per day through such scams, so people who want easy money without much prior knowledge or investment tend to do such scams,” said Choudhary.
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A Chicago man who used Grindr and other apps to blackmail gay men by threatening to out them and then carrying through on the threat has been sentenced to 52 months in US federal prison after pleading guilty to his crimes in May.
29-year-old Omoruyi O.
Uwadiae has been convicted of 22 counts of cyberstalking, using interstate communications with intent to extort, and unlawful transfer, possession, or use of a means of identification.
The sentence was handed down on December 10 by a federal District Court in Columbus, Ohio.
“Uwadiae admitted to obtaining sexually explicit photographs and videos from potential victims and then using the content to threaten them,” according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
“Uwadiae threatened to distribute the explicit material widely on the internet and specifically to victims’ friends, family members, employers and others.
“The defendant demanded money from some victims.
According to scholar Angus McLaren, it had to do with a shift in gender expectations.
“[A] new, middle-class model of domestic heterosexuality emerged, and Englishmen became increasingly concerned with maintaining a reputation of being attracted only to women,” he writes in Sexual Blackmail: A Modern History. From others, he demanded they meet him, have sex with him, or make damaging admissions such as admissions that they were racist.
In exchange for their silence, the group extorted the victim for minor sums of cash and a gold chain.
Grindr and other dating apps have been frequently used by gangs to assault, rob, blackmail and extort India’s queer community. They mocked [the complainants] and subjected them to further homophobia. It was almost like I was watching it happen to somebody else."
Mr Tewson said when he told police about suspicions his boyfriend had been using Grindr without his knowledge, he felt the officers' attitudes changed.
"When it came up in conversations I felt like it was just a complete disregard," he added.
Police documents later revealed that at the time of Mr Gough's death, the phone number used by the gang was already known to police and had been involved in at least one previous investigation into alleged blackmail involving the use of Grindr.
They also show that officers were able to trace the registration number of the car used by the gang to identify a suspect, but the men identified were never spoken to by police as potential offenders.
No DNA evidence or fingerprints were taken from the note left on the doorstep, and police didn't collect rubbish left at the scene by the gang for DNA testing.
No arrests were made following the blackmail attempt.
Mr Tewson has since complained to the force's professional standards department and to the IOPC about the handling of the case.
The IOPC report found that the attempted blackmailing of Mr Gough and potential links to his death had not been "robustly investigated," and that subsequent complaints about the investigation were also mishandled.
It upheld a complaint that the police made "several errors" following Mr Gough's death and "did not investigate [his] sudden death fully as a result".
The report also made a number of revelations about the suspected gang and how prolific their alleged crimes were.
It revealed:
Within 10 days of Mr Gough's death, police received two more separate blackmail reports involving the same phone number that appeared on the note left at his house
In both cases, the victims had arranged to meet someone on Grindr but were confronted by a group of young men who demanded money
The group later presented themselves as "paedophile hunters" despite not giving police any intelligence supporting this claim
Police treated the group as "individuals requiring safeguarding" rather than as potential offenders involved in extortion or blackmail
The IOPC has asked Hertfordshire Police to re-examine elements of the investigation into Mr Gough's death, as well as the force's handling of Mr Tewson's complaint.
A spokesperson for Hertfordshire Police said it "was unable to comment on the specifics" of Mr Tewson's complaint because "additional actions are being investigated" following the IOPC's instructions.
Supt Owen Pyle, Hertfordshire Constabulary's LGBTQ+ strategic lead, said the force was "committed to eliminating discrimination" against the LGBTQ+ community and that it wants to ensure complainants feel comfortable to approach the force.
Police accused of 'homophobic assumptions' over victims of blackmail on Grindr
Josh ParryLGBT & Identity Reporter
BBC
Warning - this story contains distressing content and references to suicide
Police failed to properly investigate allegations that a gang was blackmailing men on the gay dating app Grindr, the BBC can reveal.
Our investigation has learned of five cases of suspected blackmail involving victims targeted on Grindr in one area, with at least four of them connected to the same gang, which remains at large.
In one instance, a suspected victim killed himself 24 hours after a group of men turned up at his home demanding he hand over his new Range Rover.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog has told Hertfordshire Police - the investigating force - to examine whether "homophobic assumptions" could have contributed to failures in the investigation.
Hertfordshire Police said it was "unable to discuss specific points" about the case, which has now been reopened, but said it is committed to "building and maintaining good working relationships with the LGBTQ+ communities".
The BBC has spoken to the family of another gay man who died after being targeted on Grindr.
Charities say there can be a lack of understanding when it comes to crimes targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
'It's a total blur'
In March 2024, Cameron Tewson was at his partner Scott Gough's home in Chandler's Cross, Hertfordshire, when a group of six men turned up and demanded the keys to Mr Gough's new car.
The gang, whom Mr Tewson described as "white and in their mid 20s", fled when he called the police and alerted a neighbour.
But they left behind a note addressed to the "owner of a white Range Rover" - Mr Gough's car - and included the number plate, as well as a phone number.
The note read: "I think it's in your best interest to give me a call."
Mr Tewson said that when Mr Gough, 56, got home, he was reluctant to talk about the incident and insisted he would deal with the police directly.
Mr Tewson believes his partner, who worked at a car dealership, was trying to hide the fact that he had been using Grindr - a dating app Mr Gough had used many times in the past.
The 32-year-old said: "I feel strongly he knew who they were, and he kept that from me."
The next day, he found a handwritten version of Mr Gough's last will and testament and, while on the phone to police, discovered his partner's body in his bedroom.
A coroner later recorded Mr Gough had died by asphyxiation.
Cybercrime experts say that sextortion crimes targetting the queer community have risen since the onset of the pandemic due to increased social media usage during lockdowns. In fact, the police refused to recognize it as a crime,” Ghorpade said. Still, blackmailing men for having sex with other men didn’t go away in either the United States or the United Kingdom.
It became prevalent again in the 1950s and ‘60s, when a new gay identity and subculture was emerging for men.
Sex between men was still illegal and carried a significant social stigma; during the Lavender Scare, the United States government purged some 10,000 employees suspected of being gay. We encourage our users to report improper or illegal behaviour either within the app or directly via email and to report criminal allegations to local authorities and, in these cases, we work with law enforcement as appropriate,” a Grindr spokesperson told VICE World News in a written statement.
Upon his arrival, the gang secretly shot an explicit video of the victim and then threatened to release it on social media.
Despite the overturning of a regressive colonial era law that criminalised consensual gay sex in 2018, many queer individuals remain closeted in India out of fears of ostracism and harassment.
“Such scams are highly profitable in the local context.
He was my rock, and he was gone," she said.
A coroner's report later concluded that Mr McHale had died from asphyxiation and multiple drug intoxication "after recent issues in his personal life".
The coroner returned an inconclusive verdict on whether or not he had intended to take his own life.
Mrs Rice also fears her son's case was not investigated properly by police.
Emails seen by the BBC show that it has taken more than 18 months for Thames Valley Police, the force investigating the death, to be granted authorisation to access Mr McHale's phone or laptop for evidence.
She said: "We've not had any proper answers, but the police have told me he's not the only one who's been targeted.
"It just feels like it's been swept under the mat."
No arrests have been made in connection with Mr McHale's death.
We are deeply sympathetic of their need to obtain answers to questions about the police investigation at the time of Mr Gough's passing, and their wish to be listened to and heard."
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website.
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Activists say that the vulnerabilities of the queer community have been increasingly taken advantage of by scammer gangs using online dating apps.
“It is a big issue and they are able to successfully scam so many people because of homophobia that exists in the country, where a lot of people are not able to be open about their identities, and that fear is then exploited by these criminals,” Indrajeet Ghorpade, a LGBTQ rights advocate from the group Yes, We Exist India, told VICE World News.
However, many incidents go unreported due to fears of homophobia, hostility and even indifference from police.
The gang has a history of blackmailing closeted gay men.