UK brothers Michael and Anthony Stewart sentenced for 1984 hate‑crime murder

Michael Stewart, 57, and Anthony Stewart, 60, were sentenced at the Old Bailey to life imprisonment with minimum terms of 10 years and 15 years respectively for the 1984 murder of civil servant Anthony Littler in East Finchley, north London. The brothers, then 15 and 18, attacked Littler, whom they believed to be gay, striking him twice over the head with a blunt weapon and leaving him for dead. The case remained unsolved for decades until 2022, when a police review was prompted by the testimony of the brothers’ younger sibling, Daniel, who disclosed that his brothers had confessed to the killing.

The trial highlighted the brothers’ history of targeting men they thought were gay, their earlier boasts about the attack, and the failure of earlier investigations despite public appeals. Both defendants denied the charges in court, but a jury found them guilty after less than three hours of deliberation.