Tony Stewart

Tony Stewart was stabbed 15 times in a brawl outside the Mayflower Takeaway Restaurant on New Cross Road, opposite where he lived in Grasmere Point on the Tustin Estate on 13 March 1987.

He had been attacked by a group of five or six men.

It was said that he had been attacked after looking at one of the men outside the restaurant. A detective said, 'He may have looked too long at one of the men. It's all part of the routine round here and sometimes it leads to a killing'. The detective also said, 'It was a prolonged, vicious stabbing, one of the worst I have seen. The knife thrusts were clearly designed to kill'.

Tony Stewart had been a double-glazing window fitter but had gone to London about six months earlier to open a cafe with his sister in Walthamstow.

He had gone to the restaurant with two friends and a fight broke out between his group and the other group as they were leaving. It was said that he had tried to ignore a fight outside the restaurant as they were leaving but that a chance remark or glance might have sparked the attack on him.

He was taken to Guy's Hospital but died two hours later.

He had been stabbed five times in the back and fifteen times in total with other wounds to his heart, head, chest, stomach and arms.

The police said that they were hunting four suspects but noted that there might have been more involved, it being noted that there had been a gang of youths at the scene.

Tony Stewart had been married and had had a five-year-old son at the time. He was from Newcastle where he had been a pupil at Lyndhurst School in Low Fell.