Pizzas galore!

He was listed by the Chambers & Partners Guide to the Legal Profession, which described him as an up-and-coming barrister with "a maturity, unflappability and lack of hesitation in his addresses" which "puts one in mind of the hoariest proponents of the law".

He had been a trooper in the Honourable Artilllery Company, the oldest regiment in the British Army and the most prestigious unit in the Territorial Army. He only served for about three years and left the TA regiment in 2002, a year before the Iraq War. There is no indication from his records that he served in Afghanistan.

A post-mortem examination of his body was being carried out in Westminster today.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigates any case where police officers have used firearms, will begin house-to-house inquiries in Markham Square this afternoon.

Mr Saunders met his wife at the family law chambers Queen Elizabeth Buildings. She works under her maiden name of Clarke on similar matrimonial cases.

Friends had been surprised when they became an item. Mr Saunders was a public school-educated shooting enthusiast from the exclusive Cheshire suburb of Alderley Edge, who studied law at Oxford.

Liz, as she was known to her friends, was a comprehensive-educated girl who fought her way into Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and is believed to be a member of the Labour Party.

Another friend said: "She's a talented, generous spirited woman. It's amazing that someone who had reached her position at the top of the Bar - destined to take silk and to move into the judiciary - should find herself at the centre of something like this.

"She is a very level-headed individual, rooted in a normal background and upbringing - diligent and hardworking."

Mr Saunders had easy access to shotguns because of his love of shooting and was believed to have enjoyed hunting. Friends say that he kept at least two shotguns in their three storey house in Chelsea - the couple bought the leasehold to the property last September for £2.28m, according to Land Registry documents in the days before they married.

That luxury house became the scene of a gun-battle yesterday. Leslie Hummel, a neighbour, said there was an emotionless expression on the gunman's face as he prepared to fire at her out of his window.

"He looked very calm. I thought maybe he was on drugs or something."

He fired his first shot into Mrs Hummel's property as she was having a late lunch with a friend.

She said: "We heard this big pop. I thought it might have been a firecracker, but it sounded a lot stronger. When he fired two more, that's when we realised it was much more serious. My garden backs onto his garden. We ran like a flash back into the house. I thought: 'He's shooting into my house.' I ran into see what damage he had done. He had been shooting into my daughter's bedroom. Thank God there was no one there. I'm thinking: 'There's some weirdo who wants to kill my daughter.' I called the police. They were here in a shot."

Mrs Hummel took the policeman to the bedroom at which the gunman had been firing and saw brick dust fly up in the room three feet away from where the policeman was standing. "The policeman was very lucky. He reacted and returned fire with a handgun."

Additional policemen arrived, carrying heavier weapons. "It was either the third or fourth policeman who said: 'You should get out of the house to safety'."

She had witnessed the man looking at her through the hole that he had shot in his own window. "He was by the window. He didn't bother to open the window, he was just shooting out. I could see the tip of the gun. He was always inside."

She said she had not met him, but knew Mrs Saunders by sight from having seen her through her back window.

"They moved in last year. I never heard any screaming, nothing that would have raised any suspicion.

"I just feel very sorry for the lady."

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