Millionaire is charged with murdering wife

The millionaire husband of a woman who vanished without trace nearly six years ago has been dramatically charged with her murder.

Retired architect Jonathan Morton was today charged with killing his estranged wife Gracia in November 1997.

Mrs Morton, who was 41, went missing from her Kensington home shortly after dropping off her fouryearold daughter at school.

At the time her husband told police she had visited him at his Holland Park home for an hour before leaving.

Scotland Yard later announced they were treating the case as a murder inquiry but Mrs Morton's body has never been found despite numerous searches.

Mr Morton, 66, was first arrested and questioned about her murder in June this year.

He went to Hammersmith police station this morning by arrangement when he was charged with murder. He is due to appear at West London magistrates court tomorrow.

The officer who led the Jill Dando inquiry, Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, launched a fresh investigation into the mystery last year. At the time detectives said they were following new leads.

A former concert-violinist Mrs Morton, the Argentinian-born daughter of a newspaper-executive, left her flat in Iverna Court, Kensington, on 12 November 1997, to take her daughter to school in north Kensington.

Cameras in the hall of her home caught the last image of her, a grainy picture as she left the flat with her daughter.

When police called at her flat days later they found dirty dishes in the sink and remains of a breakfast on the table.

Her passport was in the flat and her bank account, which contained about £250,000, was untouched.

A Yard spokesman said today: "Michael Jonathan Morton has been charged with the murder of his estranged wife Gracia Morton on 12 November 1997."