Search for missing Earl becomes a murder hunt

The search for the Earl of Shaftesbury, who vanished more than six weeks ago on the French Riviera, has turned into a murder hunt.

Police in Nice have abandoned hope of finding the Earl alive, and senior detectives from Sussex police have broken the news to his family after spending four days with their French counterparts.

Police said there were no clues in the peer's home in Hove to suggest he had been planning to disappear and there had been no suspicious transactions from his bank accounts.

A Sussex police source said: "The French police are now going to treat it as a murder inquiry. Both the police and the Earl's family, who say his disappearance is totally out of character, now fear the worst."

Lord Shaftesbury's family was expected to release a statement today.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 66, the Eton and Oxford-educated 10th Earl, has not been seen since 6 November, when he was checked out of the Hilton hotel in Cannes.

The peer, said to have dedicated himself to helping vulnerable young girls start new lives, is feared to have fallen into the clutches of gangsters on the Cote d'Azur. He was a familiar figure in the hostess bars dotted along the Riviera.

The belief that he has been murdered has been bolstered by the fact that no ransom demands have been made.

His third wife, Jamila, said her estranged husband's behaviour had become increasingly erratic. The countess, herself a former hostess who met her husband in a Paris bar, said he had been drawn to charismatic underworld figures. She said last month: "He is a sociable man who makes friends easily. But these are fairweather friends who are attracted to him only because of who he is."