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Stuart Highway, played by Ricky Champ, first appears on 8 May 2018, though he is not credited until his second appearance on 10 May. He is the older brother of Halfway (Tony Clay) and a childhood friend of Mick Carter (Danny Dyer). Champ's casting was revealed in March 2018 by his agency, while the character and further details were officially announced by the BBC on 28 March 2018, on which Champ said, "I'm so happy to be part of this brilliant team of people on this great show that I grew up watching. Look out Albert Square... Stuart's coming!"

Stuart arrives in a blacked-out car, watching Mick Carter (Danny Dyer), though the car's arrival worries several other people. While Mick is alone in The Queen Victoria pub, a masked man grabs him. However, this is proven to be a prank by Stuart, who says he has been watching Mick all day. They head to the bar of the pub, where Mick's wife, Linda Carter (Kellie Bright), is not happy to see Stuart. Stuart's brother, Halfway, talks about how he was injured in Iraq by shrapnel, but Stuart later tells Halfway he knows he is lying and to tell him what really happened. Stuart tells Halfway that Mick may not forgive him for lying, but Halfway admits that he blames himself for a woman's death when he was saving her child and Mick says it was not his fault, so Halfway tells Stuart he was wrong. Stuart then pays Hayley Slater (Katie Jarvis) to get in bed with a drunken Mick while Linda is away. Linda returns in the morning and she and Mick realise Stuart is to blame, so Linda tells Mick to make sure Stuart never returns, but Mick says Stuart went to a Young Offender Institute instead of Mick when they were 13 and Linda has to accept their friendship. Linda is upset when Stuart breaks her favourite mug, but is thankful when he fixes it, though Stuart insults Linda to Halfway.

Mick hides Stuart's phone as a prank but Stuart overreacts when he cannot find it and Mick sees pictures of and messages to schoolgirls on the phone. Mick confronts Stuart and reports him to the police. However, Stuart explains to Mick that he poses as underage girls online to expose paedophiles. Mick then observes Stuart confronting a man and soon realises that Stuart wants Mick's help to confront more paedophiles. Stuart reveals that he has helped put 17 men in prison and that when he was in the Young Offender Institute, he suffered abuse from an officer. Mick agrees to help Stuart confront a man, but the man is Stuart's friend and they are just testing Mick. Mick is humiliated and Stuart says Mick cannot handle it and adds that he saved Mick from abuse by taking the blame for what Mick did when they were teenagers and calls Mick a coward, which leads to them fighting. Linda then asks Mick to not see Stuart again. Stuart meets Mick anyway and asks Halfway to help confront someone. Mick tries to stop it, and the man, Fred Lewis, runs away. Stuart later asks Halfway to confront Fred again, but Stuart takes over at the last minute, and Mick tells Stuart he has made a mistake with Fred, however, Stuart still posts his confrontation video online. Fred is attacked and Mick gives Stuart an alibi, but the police tell Mick that Fred was contacting local girls to search for his daughter, and this leads to another fight between Mick and Stuart. Mick tells Stuart to post a retraction video, which he does but also vows revenge on Mick. Stuart then intimidates Linda when they are alone, and when Mick finds out, forces him to apologise. Mick's aunt, Tina Carter (Luisa Bradshaw-White), sees Stuart and is wary of him. Tina and Stuart then go out to a 1980s music night, where Stuart requests a song, "We Call It Acieed", that gives Tina a terrifying flashback. Tina tells Sonia Fowler (Natalie Cassidy) that when she was 19 or 20, she would play a game with Stuart and his friends that involved mild "torture", but once she was locked in a car boot, tied up and gagged, and feared she would die when she smelt burning. She recalls that "We Call It Acieed" was playing in the car and Stuart must have done it to her. Tina confronts Stuart but he says it must have been someone else. Tina decides to tell Mick and Linda but Stuart has already told them, and when Stuart knows that Tina was called a "slag" that night, she again thinks it was him. She tells Mick and Linda this, and recalls the football shirt the attacker was wearing, which Mick says Stuart was wearing that day. Mick confronts Stuart and vows to never see Stuart again, and Stuart stabs an old photograph of Mick. Stuart then keys his own car and tells people that Tina did it. He accuses her of starting a hate campaign against him but makes various threats and teases her, singing "We Call It Acieed" and goading her with a wrench, which she takes and hits him on the head with.

After the attack, Stuart seeks revenge on the Carters and unbeknownst to Linda, sneaks into the pub at night, touches Linda in her sleep and records it on video, sending it to Mick. Mick later goes round to Stuart’s house and Stuart asks Mick to kill him, goading Mick to attack him when Stuart taunts him about Linda. Later that night, Stuart sneaks into the pub and is shot by an unknown assailant and goes into a coma. His daughter Zara Highway (Faye Daveney) arrives in Walford and claims that one of the Carters shot Stuart. Linda, thinking that Mick has shot him, as he lied about walking Lady Di, then takes the gun and dumps it in the canal to protect him, however she is spotted by Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters). Later, when Mick asks Linda her whereabouts, she tells him she knows but he is adamant he didn’t do it and Linda worries whether she did the right thing, though Mick reassures her. The next day, Linda is arrested for Stuart's attempted murder as the rest of the square watch on. When Stuart regains consciousness, he states that Mick shot him. Mick is later arrested and imprisoned. When Stuart makes his statement to the police, Stuart picks at his wound with a fork to cause bleeding, which she sees, but Stuart insists that Mick shot him; Zara provides Stuart with an alibi on the day Mick went to Stuart's and Stuart wanted Mick to kill him. Upon being discharged, Zara accompanies Stuart to The Vic, where he offers to tell the police that Mick shot him accidentally in exchange for them to accept Mick is guilty and Zara believes Stuart. Zara is lured to The Vic by Halfway in order for Linda to persuade her that Mick is not responsible and she visits Mick, showing her cigarette burns inflicted on her by herself due to having a childhood without Stuart present and wants him to confess. Zara begins to doubt Stuart when Mick tells her that Linda knew Zara's mum by both her and Mick, and eventually walks out on Stuart. Furious, Stuart then hires fellow convicts in prison to help make Mick's life miserable there.

Later, Linda calls time on her marriage to Mick when he admits he started smothering Stuart. She betrays Mick by visiting Stuart, ignoring Mick's desperate phone call and telephoning Stuart saying she believes him. Linda and Stuart begin meeting regularly and become close despite the family's, especially Tina's, protests. She tells the family she thinks Mick is guilty, throws away her wedding rings, and later throws the family out, then allows Stuart to move in, and calls a solicitor to begin divorce proceedings from Mick. What Stuart, Mick and the rest of their family doesn't know is that all this is a mere smokescreen from Linda to conceal her plan to help get Mick out of prison, which she eventually confesses to her mother-in-law Shirley Carter (Linda Henry) and swears her to secrecy. Linda manages to get Stuart to confess that Mick did not shoot him and he is arrested for perverting the course of justice.

Laura-Jayne Tyler of Inside Soap described Stuart as "lairy" and called him "the most objectionable new character in years!" In July 2018, Champ was longlisted for "Best Bad Boy" at The Inside Soap Awards. Stuart's shooting was nominated for Best Soap Storyline at the 2018 Digital Spy Reader Awards, while the reveal that Stuart shot himself was nominated for Biggest OMG Soap moment.