Stabbed wife to face questions

The wife of murdered financier John Monckton is expected to undergo detailed questioning by detectives today to give new details about his killers.

She is still in intensive care at St Thomas' Hospital but detectives hope she will give information to provide a new lead. Mr Monckton, 49, a director of Legal & General, died trying to protect his wife and family from two suspected burglars who barged into their ?3 million Chelsea home on Monday evening.

Detectives have been shocked by the ferocity of the assault. Mr Monckton is said to have stood no chance of survival. His 45-year-old wife was stabbed after she was tricked into opening the door of their three-storey townhouse.

Police are waiting to interview the couple's youngest daughter, Isabel, nine, who found her injured parents.

A huge police hunt is still going on for two suspects, originally described as youths between 5ft 3in and 5ft 6in tall, seen running towards King's Road after the attack. A man in his thirties arrested in Fulham on Tuesday was released on bail last night.

Police are not releasing further information about the suspects but think the attack was a bungled burglary by local criminals.

Residents had paid ?500 each for a set of CCTV cameras to cover the street. Detectives analysing footage believe it provides the best hope of identifying the killers.

But in a bizarre twist it emerged today the cameras were only there at the time of the attack because a council order for their removal - issued a week earlier on the grounds that they had been installed without planning permission - had not been put into effect.

The CCTV cameras were installed on a 12ft post in the front garden of 14 Upper Cheyne Row. Three cameras cover the area in all directions.

Kensington and Chelsea Council's planning and conservation director, Michael French, wrote giving a homeowner two options: to remove the cameras within 28 days or make a planning application to keep them in place.

But such an application was not likely to succeed, he warned, adding: "I consider the location and design of the cameras to have a harmful effect on the street scene."