Born in 1903, (not 1894 as stated in John Simpson's Unreliable Sources), Stephens was educated at Gresham's School in Norfolk and, later, at the University of Cambridge.

His articles, criticizing Nazism and uncovering the harsh conditions of the Jews, became increasingly prominent in the Daily Express.

From London, he continued to write critical articles on the Nazis, until the Daily Express lost its enthusiasm for this.

He asked the ambassador not to use his name otherwise he would not be permitted to report from Franco's Nationalist headquarters, since their line was the Republicans had set fire to and blown up their own town.

John Gittings, however, on his website www.johngittings.com, quotes Five Months of War (Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald, 1938), p. 133 as putting Stephens' death on 11 November.

Gittings' quotation goes on to describe Stephens as having been shot while watching the fighting from a water tower, when a Japanese machine gunner unexpectedly raised his aim.