| Mark Saunders profile Friends, police and health professionals spoke of the fragile mental state of Chelsea barrister Mark Saunders as he struggled to overcome alcoholism and depressionMark Saunders fought his demons throughout his adult life until they finally overwhelmed him on a sunny spring day.A "popular, gutsy and polished" family lawyer, he had a reputation that bought him wealth and a fashionable £2.2m Chelsea home where he lived with his equally successful wife, Elizabeth, also a barrister.Raised in Cheshire's affluent Alderley Edge, the privately schooled Oxford graduate was tipped as future Queen's Counsel – possibly, even, a high court judge.But according to psychiatrist Alessia Ciani, who saw him a year before his death, he was forced to "put on a mask to function in daily life".The 32-year-old lawyer lived in the grip of alcoholism. While seeking professional help to "change his life" he relapsed time and again embarking on lonely self-destructive drinking binges that left him remorseful, anxious and depressed.When in 2005 he began his relationship with Elizabeth, now 42 and a senior colleague at the top-flight Queen Elizabeth Buildings (QEB) chambers in London's Temple, she was aware he drank heavily "in a social context". She made it clear that would have to change if their relationship was to progress and would "help in any way" she could.They married in August 2006 and were "very much in love", spending "virtually all of our time together", she said. In the two months prior to his shooting he had drunk one glass of red wine, to his wife's knowledge. But she did not know he had also taken cocaine and was a regular user.Few clues emerged as to what precipitated his final fatal binge, which saw him drinking alone in Kensington, calling escort agencies, and leaving bizarre phone messages for friends before returning home at 4.30pm.There was no domestic row. His wife was at work but he was not, though he was due to meet a client for dinner, believed to be the television presenter Chris Tarrant.When in the last minutes before he was shot, he shouted drunkenly out of his kitchen window in Markham Square, one police officer thought he said he had just discovered "he can't have a child … that's what it sounded like". But there was no other evidence of that.What was clear, from the largely incoherent conversations he had with police negotiators, was that he felt he had let his wife down. He told Superintendent John Sutherland, "she's been duped", which the officer believed was a reference to his battle with drink, and that he had "played a game".Sutherland said Saunders spoke of having been "upset for a long time" and that he was "not capable of being the man that she needs him to be".He was "clearly dotty" about his wife, whose academic ability at comprehensive school won her a place at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.His last message to her, written on the lid of a cardboard box and dropped from his window, read: "I love my wife to bits and pieces. I really do xxx." It was lost by police and probably swept up as street debris after the five-hour siege.To family and friends they were a "golden couple". But his parents, Rosemary and Rodney, and sisters Charlotte and Jennifer, while aware he had "drink issues", seemed unaware of the extent of his problem.He had started drinking at 13, was regularly drinking at weekends by 16 and increased his consumption "significantly" while at Christ Church, Oxford, where he read law.His drinking became worse after he joined QEB chambers in 1999 and by his late 20s he was "out of control", drinking to excess five nights a week, mainly on his own, and consuming the equivalent of almost four bottles of spirits a week.At the same time, he was proving himself in the field of matrimonial and family law, building up a formidable reputation and attracting prominent clients.He turned to professionals for help. He wanted to be a social drinker and was successful "most of the time", but had "blips" every three months or so.They urged total abstinence but being teetotal was "scary" to him, said consultant psychologist Dr Neil Brener, who saw him in 2005.His therapist, consultant psychiatrist Dr William Shanahan, feared the dual diagnosis of alcohol dependence and depression, for which he was taking Prozac to control his mood swings, could make him suicidal."If he is depressed and is binge drinking during that period he is at greater risk of ending his life," he wrote, five weeks before Saunders' death.The "paranoid and belligerent" state he found himself in when drunk posed the risk of him being "stabbed, set upon or killed".Friends noticed his low tolerance for alcohol. His best man, Alex Booth – to whom he sent a text during the siege quoting The Doors lyrics: "This is the end, my only friend. The end" – said he often hurt himself when drunk, and ended up in casualty once. "You could not engage with him" and it was as if he was "in a fantasy world", Booth said.He received a police caution for being drunk and disorderly in 2005, which he declared when applying for his shotgun licence in 2006. A keen cook, and a former Territorial Army soldier, he took up shooting game and the day before he died had been booking hotels for his next shoot.As negotiators struggled to strike up a rapport during their two 40-minute conversations with him, he continued to drink red wine. His wife told police he would "just go and go and eventually he'll collapse".Negotiator commander Detective Inspector Steve Wagstaff said at the time: "Problem being she says that then he gets a bit unpredictable, won't speak to us and then he'll collapse. That unpredictable bit is the thing I don't like."At the inquest Wagstaff recalled a meeting he had with his superior, Superintendent Michael Wise, at 8pm, one and a half hours before Saunders was shot. "I will remember until the day I die that I said to Mike 'This is going well'," he said.Negotiator Inspector Sonia Davis told colleagues she felt "dead sorry for this bloke", adding: "I think it's worse when the professionals fall, you know, like that".Gun crimeCrimePoliceLondonCaroline Daviesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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