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London: The family of a barrister and former British Army reservist shot dead by police after a five-hour siege in Chelsea have described their shock at his "bizarre" behaviour.
Mark Saunders, 32, fired indiscriminately at neighbours and police in a residential square in Chelsea, London, on Tuesday night after he reportedly had a row with his wife Elizabeth, a fellow barrister.
At one point Saunders threw what appeared to be a goodbye message to his wife from the window of his second-floor flat.
The note, written on the side of a cardboard box, said: "I love my wife dearly xxx."
Yesterday Saunders's father Ronald and mother Elizabeth said their Oxford-educated son's behaviour was "totally out of character".
Saunders senior said: "He sent my wife an email just yesterday at 7:30am. There was no indication whatsoever that there was anything wrong. That is what we have been trying to understand." He said his son and 40-year-old daughter-in-law appeared to be "the ideal couple".
No problems
However, friends said there had been problems in the marriage for months, mostly caused by Mark Saunders's drinking and bouts of depression.
The couple are understood to have had an argument on Tuesday morning, after which Saunders went to work. But he returned home at lunchtime and spent the afternoon drinking, then argued again with his wife, causing her to flee in tears. Shortly afterwards Saunders began firing from his £2.2-million (Dh8 million) flat in Markham Square using a legally-owned shotgun and possibly another weapon. As police cordoned off the area and began exchanging fire with Saunders, his wife took refuge in a clothing shop on the King's Road, where she wept as she told police that an argument had got out of hand.
Sources close to the police investigation said Saunders was shot from distance at around 9:30pm on Tuesday before the police went into the flat.
He was pronounced dead by paramedics shortly after police entered the property. No shots were fired inside. Paddy Renouf, 48, said: "There was a volley of what sounded like stun grenade 'pops', then they went in. It all looked incredibly well organised and professional.
"The whole thing was quite extraordinary. It was like a movie. They looked like the SAS. They had helmets, balaclavas and crampons for climbing."
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