In attendance, corrupt potential killer (7)
I believe the answer is:
garotte
'potential killer' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how one could define the other.
'in attendance corrupt' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'attendance' becomes 'gate' (I've seen this before).
'corrupt' becomes 'rot'.
'gate' enclosing 'rot' is 'GAROTTE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for garotte that I've seen before include "Facility to dispose of person" , "Spanish method of execution" , "Kill by strangulation" , "throttle" , "Strangle" .)