Dark facet of the Hackney Mole Man revealed: Eccentric engineer who constructed labyrinth of tunnels beneath his house was probed over sexual assault claims

For almost four decades, William Lyttle intricately constructed an elaborate labyrinth of tunnels underneath his London home.

What started off as a dream to build a wine cellar soon turned into an obsession to create an extensive network of passages that earned Lyttle the ‘Hackney Mole Man’ nickname. 

Lyttle, an Irishman who had inherited the house on Hackney’s Mortimer Road from his parents, first started burrowing beneath his double-fronted Victorian villa in the 1960s. 

Cementing himself as an almost legend-like character of Hackney, Lyttle went on to create tunnels up to 60ft long under the 20-room house before he was eventually evicted over safety concerns.

Before his death in 2010, it is estimated over the years he scooped out 100 cubic metres of earth from beneath the house which sits on a sharp point between two roads on the edge of trendy Dalston. 

When MailOnline visited the Mole Man’s house, which has since been resigned by an ambitious artist, we expected to hear old tales about Lyttle’s night time excavations.

Instead, neighbours laid bare a darker side to the Mole Man, claiming that he was ‘inappropriate’ with young female exchange students who he housed in one of his many rooms.

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: ‘I don’t think he was utterly appropriate years and years back. I don’t think he was a perfect individual by any means.

‘I do remember as a child him shouting out on the road when you were trying to sleep.

‘He used to rent out rooms in the house. And I think he used to try and rent out rooms to young females. I’d hear every now and then they’d be out on the road shouting at him. I think they may have been exchange students in the rooms. 

‘I did hear that sometimes he was inappropriate… but I don’t know to what level or was he just an irritant to them? He was a bit of a weird character.’

When MailOnline contacted the Met Police about any historical allegations at the address, a spokesman for the force said: ‘In February 1999, police received a report of a sexual assault on Mortimer Road, Hackney.

‘An investigation was carried out – the case was finalised with no further action.’

Karen Russo, an artist and filmmaker who was invited inside to see Lyttle’s tunnels and took extraordinary pictures of the labyrinth, has also previously spoken about his ‘violent’ and ‘sexual’ nature.

Having spent time with Lyttle in 2007, she said: ‘Though flattered by my interest, the Mole Man proved to be extraordinarily difficult to work with. He was extremely racist, misogynistic and paranoid, and was only interested in talking about my sex life.’

She added: ‘I soon realised, though, that the sexual overtones of our relationship threatened to over-take the project completely.

‘My encounter with this eccentric and aggressive man ended in violence against me and I subsequently decided to end the project.’

Neighbours recalled Lyttle being a bit of an odd character who very much kept himself to himself.  

His bizarre yet somewhat impressive obsession with digging clearly served as a passion but he infuriated his neighbours who regularly complained about his incessant drilling.

Despite being a retired civil engineer, the Mole Man was not without flaws and he once dug into a 450-volt cable under his house which sparked a major power outage for the whole street.

An eight foot hole also appeared in the pavement outside his house, sparking anger from the council who had to reroute the No 76 bus amid fears the ground would give way.

Eventually the council evicted him ‘for his own safety’ in 2006 and engineers had to remove 33 tons of debris including three cars and a boat from under the building, before they could infill the tunnels with concrete. 

The Mole Man, whose catacomb divides opinion, ended up being rehoused in a flat, where he died in June 2010. He had also begun to start digging at the new flat before his death.

Many residents living on Mortimer Road have recently moved to the area and while they know about the Mole Man’s history, they never met him themselves.

However, one man, 50-year-old teacher Tom Costello, grew up opposite the Mole Man in a house which has been in his family for 48 years. 

He revealed to MailOnline how Lyttle continued to live in house way after being evicted by the council.

‘They put corrugated iron all around the property but I know he broke in,’ he said, quipping that his later father even let him borrow a crow bar.

‘He used to sleep in there at nighttime with no lights on… I think he used chain cutters as well. My dad was a builder. Then he used to hide in there with no lights, definitely for a few months. 

‘He was a bit of a rebel who thought ‘they can’t evict me’. 

‘I do remember for a long period of time he used to go in there, you would see him open up the corrugated iron and slide in and then you’d see a little torch go on in the window and then it would go off again while he was hiding.’

Mr Costello believes he ‘liked the idea of having more space’, adding: ‘He was either crazy or just didn’t care.’

He joked that ‘everyone knew the Mole Man but I don’t think people actually knew his real name’. 

Mr Costello revealed that his father and Lyttle bonded over both being Irish.

Talking about the Mole Man’s character, Mr Costello, who sometimes drove Lyttle to hospital, said: ‘He was obviously a bit eccentric. He kept himself to himself, I don’t think he was open to building friendships.

 ‘He would scavenge anything he could. My dad said he went in and he’d put a bath in the floor so you could actually walk into the bath. It was like a sunken bath but then when my dad went downstairs, the bath was just hanging through the ceiling.

‘I believe he was an engineer so I’m hoping he didn’t cut the joists, maybe he did, I don’t know. He was a bit crazy.

‘He did dig deep under the pavement because the pavement sunk and fell through. It was about two foot of the pavement just sunk down.’

Mr Costello told how residents probably had suspicions with what he was doing but thought it was ‘quite funny’, adding:  ‘People used to say he was digging his way to Barclays, because there used to be one.’

He continued: ‘I know the house next to them, he was an architect and they had it all checked, but he never dug under their property but they were really freaked out.

‘My dad used to think he was funny, my dad was Irish, he was Irish, they had that connection. They weren’t best friends, but my dad would speak to anyone.

‘All I know that when he died, think the property went to his daughter but she wanted to sell it straight way, but they owed about £500k to the council. They just poured in cement.’

But the legacy of the Hackney legend lives on, as the new owners have paid homage to the Mole Man after buying the structural death trap for £1.12million in 2012.

The historic home of Lyttle, who was born in 1931, was sold to artist Sue Webster who previously revealed how she stumbled across the fascinating property while cycling home.

She told The Guardian in 2020: ‘It had ‘Danger, keep out’ stickers all over it. I pulled up and I rang Hackney council immediately.’ 

Webster was told by the person on the phone to search for ‘Mole Man’ online and once she did, she recalling thinking: ‘Wow, there’s a project.’

Webster then tracked down the heir hunter and registered her interest but struggled to convince him she was serious. 

‘Of course, he didn’t take a blind bit of notice of me,’ she says. ‘I was a woman on a push bike: he didn’t realise I had millions of pounds stuffed down my knickers.’ 

Still determined to get her hands on the Mole Man’s property, she took her art dealer with her to help do the bidding – and she was handed Lyttle’s keys with a cheap plastic fob with his name on. 

The Mole Man’s house had a guide price of £750,000 but went under the hammer for £1,120,000 after stiff bidding from several buyers.

Mr Costello said he has ‘got used’ to the redeveloped Mole Man House.

He explained: ‘My only issue was what was it going to be turned into? I know one person wanted to buy the property and knock it all down and turn it into a 30-bed property, like micro bedrooms. We just thought that’s going to ruin this area.’