But despite hiring a team of £1,000-a-day bodyguards to protect her London home, last week the MoS was able to walk right past them and up to her front door.

The City was in shock last night after the apparent suicide of a millionaire financier haunted by the pressures of dealing with the credit crunch.

Kirk Stephenson, who was married with an eight-year-old son, died in the path of a 100mph express train at Taplow railway station, Berkshire.

Mr Stephenson is believed to have taken his own life after succumbing to mounting personal pressures as the world’s financial markets went into meltdown.

The death of the respected 47-year-old City figure evokes memories of the 1929 Wall Street crash in America and comes as:

• Bradford & Bingley teeters on the brink of nationalisation after a dramatic share price slump.

• David Cameron faced embarrassment on the eve of the Tory conference after members of a secretive club of Conservative donors were linked to the ‘short-selling’ of Bradford &am ... Read more »

THE Treasury was poised last night to nationalise Bradford & Bingley (B&B), the troubled mortgage bank.

In an attempt to try to avoid a rerun of the Northern Rock debacle the government plans to hold an immediate fire sale to sell off B&B’s assets to one or more banks.

The Spanish banking giant Santander was in talks last night about its potential role in the rescue. Another buyer could be HSBC.