Two brothers have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a civil servant 42 years ago, in a hate crime targeting men they believed to be gay. Michael Stewart, 57, and Anthony Stewart, 60, were handed minimum terms of 10 and 15 years respectively at the Old Bailey on Thursday. They were just 15 and 18 when they attacked Anthony Littler as he walked home in East Finchley, north London, on May 1, 1984.
Attack on Anthony Littler
Mr Littler, a 45-year-old real ale enthusiast, had spent the evening at a pub in Carshalton, Surrey, at a meeting of the Ponds Branch of The Society for the Preservation of Beer from the Wood. He was ambushed and left for dead as he walked home down a narrow alleyway from East Finchley Tube station at 12:18 am. He was hit twice over the head with a blunt weapon and found mortally wounded half an hour later, still with his briefcase, £80 cash, and credit cards. Within minutes of the attack, Michael Stewart had anonymously called for an ambulance from a phone box, but a search for an injured man was called off after he hung up. Half an hour later, members of the public found Mr Littler lying in a pool of blood, having suffered a catastrophic brain injury.
Decades-Long Investigation
By the spring of 1984, the Stewart siblings and their friends had made a hobby of targeting lone men they believed to be gay, jurors were told. During house-to-house police inquiries, they claimed to be at home at the time of the attack, with binman Anthony Stewart insisting he never used the alley. Despite appeals on BBC Crimewatch and ITV's Police 5, no meaningful leads were identified, and the case remained unsolved for decades. The breakthrough came on the 29th anniversary of Mr Littler's death, when the defendants' younger brother Daniel, who was 10 at the time, came forward to police after a family falling-out. He told officers his older brothers had confessed to the killing and boasted about being involved in queer bashing. Years after the killing, Michael Stewart had also admitted his guilt to a girlfriend and even showed her where it happened.
Covert Police Techniques
In 2022, police reopened the investigation and deployed covert investigative techniques against the brothers, bugging their cars and Michael's home. Anthony was said to be a man of few words, but Michael proved to have a loose tongue and bragged about what he did in 1984, the court heard. Both defendants, from north London, declined to give evidence and had denied involvement. An Old Bailey jury deliberated for less than three hours to find them guilty of murder.
