Brothers on trial for murder 40 years ago

Two brothers have gone on trial at the Old Bailey accused of killing a civil servant as he walked home 42 years ago.

Michael Stewart, 57, and Anthony Stewart, 60, were aged just 15 and 18 when they allegedly ambushed Anthony Littler in an alley in East Finchley, north London, on 1 May 1984.

Despite an appeal on BBC Crimewatch and ITV's Police 5, no meaningful leads were identified and the case remained unsolved for decades, the Old Bailey heard.

Michael Stewart, from New Barnet, and Anthony Stewart, from East Finchley, have denied murder.

The Stewart brothers had told police during house-to-house inquiries they were at home at the time of the attack, with Anthony Stewart claiming he never used the alley.

The breakthrough came on the 29th anniversary of Littler's death, when the defendants' younger brother Daniel, who was aged 10 at the time, came forward to police following a family falling out.

He told officers they had confessed to the killing and boasted about being involved in "queer bashing", jurors were told.

Years after the killing, Michael Stewart also allegedly admitted his guilt to a girlfriend and even showed her where it happened.

In 2022, police reopened the investigation and deployed covert investigative techniques against the brothers, bugging their cars and Michael's home, jurors were told.

For the prosecution, John Price KC said the defendants' younger brother Daniel, then aged 10, knew his brothers had made a "hobby" of attacking solitary men in public.

"It was something they enjoyed doing," the court heard.

Price told jurors: "You will hear that this was not the only time that Michael Stewart, Anthony Stewart and others associated with them used violence on a solitary man they did not know, in a public place.

"By the spring of 1984, it is alleged by the prosecution that for quite a while this had been a habit or hobby of theirs.

"It was something they enjoyed doing.

"They had begun by targeting men whom they thought might be homosexual men."

The trial continues.

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