- Eva Rausing is seen shuffling down the street in dark glasses to visit the dentist for treatment on an abscess
- Her husband Hans looks scruffy and disorientated as he pulls up awkwardly on double yellow lines to drop her off
By Emily Allen and John Hutchinson
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Seen on an ordinary day in downtown London, this footage is the last captured of Hans and Eva Rausing together just a few weeks before she was tragically found dead at their mansion.
The super-rich couple, who have a well documented history of drug abuse, were filmed by an onlooker making a rare appearance outdoors in upmarket Chelsea, west London as the 4.5billion Tetra Pak heir dropped his wife Eva, 48, off at the dentist.
The pictures show vividly how badly the couple had declined and they were in a state of some confusion as they made their way onto the pavement in the bright sunshine after pulling up in an old Mercedes.
What happens after provides evidence of how far the couple had slumped - and how much help they were in obvious need of.
The footage emerged as news broke that Mr Rausing has been arrested on suspicion of her murder. He is still not fit to be questioned by detectives and remains in a secure medical facility.
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Confused: Footage shows Eva Rausing shuffling along a pavement unsteadily to visit the dentist in Chelsea
Dishevelled: Mrs Rausing has a brief conversation with her unkempt-looking husband after he drops her off
Unsteady: Mr Rausing opens the door of his old Mercedes parked awkwardly on the roadside before driving off
The short video clip, filmed at about 1.30pm one day at the beginning of May, shows the dishevelled and confused mother-of-four, shuffling along the pavement after being dropped off by her unkempt-looking husband.
Hiding her eyes behind dark glasses, her blonde hair in her face, a fragile-looking Mrs Rausing wanders unsteadily along the pavement carrying a small brown handbag and gripping her mobile phone. Dressed in bright pink cropped trousers, a white shirt and dark coat that appears too large for her tiny frame, she repeatedly touches her nose and flicks her hair.
A pale-looking Mr Rausing, 49, cut a worrying shape too as he pulled up awkwardly on double-yellow lines, more than a foot from the kerb in an old left-hand-drive Mercedes, dressed in a brown jacket and scruffy T-shirt.
He looked disorientated as he stepped into the busy stream of traffic, opening the car door for his wife.
The pair had a brief conversation before he clumsily pointed her in the direction of the dentist before he clambered back behind the wheel, gripping the car door to steady himself, and driving off.
An onlooker said: 'Mrs Rausing clearly didn't look very well, she was very unsteady on her feet. He was stumbling about too - you wouldn't have wanted to get behind the wheel with him.'
Commenting on the video, Cosmo Duff Gordon, founder of the Start2Stop outpatient addiction treatment programme told Mail Online: 'Mr Rausing looks unkempt and appeared to have markedly jerky, poorly co-ordinated movements, somewhat out of synch with things around him.
'As he holds onto the car door to steady himself, it is also noticeable that his mouth and jaw seem quite slack.
'Mrs Rausing seems, like millions of people, to be quite intent on texting someone. Her appearance is much smarter than her husband’s, but she is not walking with any purpose: she seems to be listing and unsteady.
'She also repeatedly does something to her right cheek, which appears unusual.'
'Mr Rausing’s appearance (gaunt, unkempt, jerky yet slowed down, clutching onto the car door) would seem to be consistent with someone who was using drugs. Mrs Rausing, on the other hand, is behaving rather more ‘normally’, and not necessarily in a way attributable to substance use.'
The effects of...
HEROIN
Heroin is a depressant, a narcotic whose use creates around a 200 per cent spike in dopamine levels.
The effects of narcotic opiates on consciousness are complex. Drowsy, cloudy, feelings occur because opiates depress the activity of parts of the cerebral cortex. But they also produce excitation in other parts, leading users to experience a sense of euphoria.
Heroin addicts are likely to manifest the following constellation of symptoms: dirty and unkempt appearance (heroin addicts develop an aversion to water and will go lengthy periods of time without bathing or washing); teeth problems (unlikely to see dentists); endocarditis (see below; bacterial infection of the heart valves, one symptom of which is unsteadiness); very pale (lowered blood pressure); lethargic and amotivated (won’t do much; the relationship with heroin is a full-time one).
When stoned, likely to ‘nod out’ --- or fall asleep mid-sentence.
If an intravenous heroin user, likely to go through veins in arms and legs and then use veins in groin and neck. Likely to have numerous abscesses requiring courses of antibiotics.
Very low sex drive and highly constipated; may not pass stools for many days at a time.
However, once the initial rush of a ‘hit’ has passed (maybe after 30 minutes for an IV user), the heroin addict may be quite lucid and often able to hide their addiction and meet the demands of sometimes quite exacting jobs.
Heroin is actually a non-toxic substance, which means that long-term heroin use won’t, for example, cause brain trauma (unlike long-term alcohol use).
The effects of...
CRACK COCAINE
Crack, a purer and stronger form of cocaine, is a powerful stimulant, whose effect is to increase behavioural activity, engendering a sense of alertness, energy, pleasure and euphoria.
Studies suggest that it stimulates around a 450 per cent spike in production of dopamine.
Crack addicts will become hyper alert, often staying up for days at a time, very edgy and have a restless, jagged, energy.
Pupils will be dilated and self-care will be poor.
Crack addiction can cause psychosis (not the case with heroin addiction) and many crack users will psychotically pick at their skin for imaginary bugs/insects/spiders.
Others will have psychotic and paranoid delusions where they think they are being followed, spied on by police hiding in the walls, etc.
Crack will also, for many users, cause them to engage in high-risk sex.
Being a powerful stimulant, crack inhibits hunger, which means that crack addicts will tend to eat very little while on binges and become quite emaciated.
Once caught in a crack addiction spiral, the only thing that ends the binge for most addicts is running out of money --- if one has access to an endless source of money, it is hard to imagine the binge stopping without an external intervention or the user experiencing an existential crisis.
When heroin and crack are used together (‘speedballs’) the interaction is incredibly powerful and drives an acceleration of the addictive process and consequent losses/problems/unmanageability.
Psychotherapist and counsellor Adrianna Irvine added: 'If the man in this video is the same man in an earlier picture of Mr Rausing, his evident decline is quite awful.
The woman in the video & pictures of Mrs Rausing show an equally awful decline.
'They do each appear to be under the influence of either drugs or alcohol or both. Of course, it may transpire that they were both on legally prescribed medication, such as methadone or who knows what.
'The Rausings have had their drug use documented & if this is them in this video, or whoever it is, I would comment that they both seem to be in a state of quite advanced addiction.'
One of Britain's richest women, Mrs Rausing is believed to have visited an upmarket dentist in Sloane Street, Chelsea, for treatment for an abscess.
Treatment: Mr Rausing talks to his wife briefly before she visited the dentist for treatment for an abscess
She was in the dentist for around 10 minutes before she reappeared and wandered back home to their 70million Belgravia mansion in Cadogan Place.
It was here that she was found dead in an upstairs bedroom on Monday when police carried out a search after her husband was arrested in possession of Class A drugs while driving erratically in South London.
The fabulously rich couple are said to have existed in virtual squalor in just two rooms of the house as they battled long-term drug problems.
Decline: Another picture of the couple who were pictured looking scruffy and confused just weeks before Mrs Rausing was found dead on Monday and there are suggestions her body had been there for three or four days
Drug den: Despite living in this vast 70million Belgravia mansion, the couple - who had fought a long battle with addiction to hard drugs - had become increasingly reclusive, confining themselves to two squalid rooms
A post-mortem has been carried out by Home Office pathologist Nat Carey, in the presence of defence pathologist Simon Poole, but no obvious cause of death has been found. Further tests including toxicology are pending.
Mr Rausing was arrested by police on Monday, July 9 in Wandsworth, south London after police suspected he had been under the influence of drink or drugs.
They searched his car and a small amount of drugs were discovered. Police were then granted permission to search the couple's home where they discovered Mrs Rausing's body. Scotland Yard would not comment on whether Class A drugs were found at the house.
Mr Rausing was first arrested on drugs charges and then later re-arrested on suspicion of murder when his wife's body was found.
The inquest into her death was opened today. Detective Inspector Sharon Marman told Westminster Coroner's Court: 'We have not yet been in a position to interview Mr Rausing. He has been arrested on suspicion of her murder and we await notification of when he would be fit to be interviewed by police.'
Inquest: Pictures of Eva Rausing from her MySpace page. A post-mortem examination has concluded no obvious cause of death has been found and further tests including toxicology are pending
Billionaire Hans Kristian Rausing, pictured with his wife a few years ago, may have lived with his wife Eva's dead body for up to four days before it was discovered by police it has been claimed
Scotland Yard officers need to find out if, as has been suggested, he lived in their house for three or four days while her body was in the house. They are also trying to trace a drug dealer in the Wandsworth area of South London.
Police are also examining CCTV footage to track the couple’s movements as well as those of anyone entering or leaving the Cadogan Place house where they had lived for 13 years.
Their bank records are also being looked at and detectives, assisted by specialists, are studying what are described as Mrs Rausing’s ‘long and extremely complicated medical records’ for clues as to what led to the death.
Yesterday, Mrs Rausing's mother revealed her daughter flew home from a drugs rehabilitation centre in the United States in the days before her death after her husband failed to join her as planned.
Nancy Kemeny believes her daughter – who had a pacemaker after having a heart valve replaced – died from heart problems triggered by the flight to London.
She said Mrs Rausing had come home to try to persuade her husband to join her for treatment.
THE HORRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT ADDICTION
Leading psychotherapist and counsellor Adrianna Irvine says...
'Given the known facts so far, Mrs Rausing's family have commented that she had just returned from a rehabilitation centre in the US as her husband had not joined her.
'Without knowing their personal circumstances, I can only comment that if one person in a couple tries to get into recovery, cleans up and stops using drugs and alcohol, but the other doesn't, it's incredibly difficult to stay clean and sober.
'Of course, at that point, I would be looking to see if there is a relationship addiction, or what's called a 'process addiction' as a separate issue from 'substance addictions'.
Tragic: Addiction seems to have triumphed in the case of the Rausings
'It's my experience that, often, addicts find each other and if an addict cannot stay clean and sober, then there is a process addiction working (which is relationships, co-dependence, sex and love addiction, food, money) or a mental health issue or both.
'The drugs and alcohol are horrendous addictions in themselves but they are evident and obvious.
'The relationship addictions are not, unless you know what you are looking for. Sex addiction is beginning to be noticed but other aspects of this are much less known or commented upon and so this is the most un-noticed & perhaps the most difficult to explain.
'It will have it roots in much, much earlier behaviours and environments than any of the substances as we are conceived in relationship and so that begins before anythings else.
'The man clearly, no matter what state he is in, has gone round to the passenger side of the car to escort the woman out and onto the pavement. Or so it looks.
'This is old fashioned and quite chivalrous and I believe illustrates love and care who knows, perhaps control also.
'I cannot comment on subsequent events with regards to the Rausings because we simply do not know yet - but I would say that any form of addiction is horrendous and such a terrible end is really tragic.
He may be alive but he's clearly very ill and while addiction is never, ever an 'excuse' for anything, it is so often the reason.
'It's a very sad story, whatever the details. And there is treatment and there is a solution.'
Meet the Adams family: first pictures of Vauxhall's new line-up - The Sun
No, they’re not a sequel to the weird Sixties TV series — this is Vauxhall’s new motoring line-up.
Jam, Glam and Slam are the trim levels offered with the company’s new city car, the Adam.
And despite the strange name, Vauxhall are deadly serious about the model. They believe it can take on the hugely successful Fiat 500 and Citroen DS3 and even the Mini.
It’s definitely one of the coolest small cars I’ve seen in a long time, with a unique “floating” roof which looks as if it is disconnected from the body. It makes the use of two-tone paint jobs a dramatic feature of every Adam.
It has a classy, up-market look, with its wing-shaped chrome grille and a slashing blade line in the lower door. It will also be the first car in this sector to have the option of LED daytime running lights.
Vauxhall say it takes small-car motoring to a new level of personalisation, with a staggering one million different spec combinations.
Vauxhall’s aptly named chief designer Mark Adams thinks they have come up with a small car that bucks the trend of retro designs.
He says: “We are looking for individuals who want to defy convention with a fresh, modern design. No other car in this segment can be individualised as much as Adam, because we are offering virtually unlimited exterior/interior colour, fabric and kit combinations.
“It will be very unlikely that you will find two identical Adams out on the road when they go on sale.”
To me, it looks like the perfect car for the style-conscious iPhone generation.
The car’s infotainment system connects to new media sources including Bluetooth and smartphones linked to the web and GPS navigation via a seven-inch screen.
The Adam’s technology will be groundbreaking for a small car, with gadgets normally only found in top-of-the-range models, such as the option of advanced parking assist. It will also get the latest economical petrol engines, with a 54mpg 1.2litre, a 51mpg 1.4 and later an all-new, 1litre, three-cylinder unit capable of 60mpg-plus.
At just over 12ft, the Adam is short but still has room for four adults.
Orders will start in October for sale in January and I expect prices to range from £11,000 to £14,000 and up to nearly £20,000 for an Adam with every extra.
I think I’ll get used to the name because I really like the way it looks looks and what it offers — just as long as Vauxhall don’t come up with a special-edition Adam Pugsley or, heaven forbid, Adam Uncle Fester.
London Mayor Boris Johnson says army presence will add 'tone' to 2012 Olympics - The Independent
With just two weeks to go until the opening ceremony, the military has been called in to plug a gap left by the failure of private provider G4S.
An extra 3,500 servicemen and women are being flown in after the company said it might not be able to provide enough guards for all the venues.
The Mayor today said he was confident the Olympics would be very safe and the presence of the Army would add "tone" to the occasion.
"I think we are in the stage now of pre-curtain-up jitters and you would expect the media, quite properly, to be focusing on all the areas where people feel there may be imperfections or things we need to nail down and clearly transport and security have always been the big question marks.
"But I'm very confident that at this stage London is better prepared for the Olympics than any previous Olympic city has ever been."
Asked if G4S had his confidence, he said: "I think the Games are going to be very safe, very secure and the arrangements that are going to be made by G4S, by the Armed Services, will deliver very good results.
"We have increased the number of people who will be involved and I think anybody who goes to Wimbledon and sees the role of the Armed Services in venue security, making the thing run well, will like it. It will add an element of tone to our proceedings over the next few weeks."
Mr Johnson was speaking after he unveiled a plaque officially opening the new Hippodrome Casino on the corner of Leicester Square in London and said the venue was a boost for the capital.
"I think it's a great shot in the arm for this part of London and it's changing the whole time. We are seeing a lot of money being pumped into this part of town and this is a new magnet, lodestar, honey pot, whatever the word I want is, for high rollers around the world who are going to come and, I hope, unbelt significant quantities of foreign currency here in our city and cement 450 new jobs which this revitalised Hippodrome has created."
Mr Johnson joked that bankers could learn lessons about the consequences of gambling from such an establishment.
"One of the educations that this casino could provide is for bankers who don't fully understand the risks they are taking with money and the terrible inevitability of losing if you don't calculate the risks correctly," he said.
Simon Thomas, chairman and co-owner the casino, said: "We have been on site now for three years, we have taken two grade II-listed buildings on the busiest corner in London and turned it into the largest casino-led adult entertainment complex in London.
"We have five bars, three gaming floors, a 180-seat cabaret, a 150-cover restaurant, four private dining rooms and have created a space we hope London will be proud of."
Mr Thomas said he was not concerned about opening a casino in times of economic hardship.
"England is in recession but London is not, London is booming away. We have thousands of tourists going past every day, lots of people in the UK who go to casinos too. Our clients will be anyone over 21 who wants a fantastic night out."
Vauxhall Maloo - The Independent
For better or worse, there really is nothing quite like the Vauxhall Maloo. It comes originally from Vauxhall’s Australian sister company in the General Motors empire, Holden, and is the latest in a series of rebadged high-performance cars from that source to arrive in the UK. First, there was the 2004 Monaro, which looked a bit like a beefed up coupé version of the old Opel/Vauxhall Omega. That was followed in 2007 by the VXR8, which had a spoilered-up saloon body, but otherwise followed the same recipe as the Monaro – the big, roomy body of a traditional full-sized Australian car combined with the character and thrilling power of a US-sourced “small-block” GM V8, a base engine that enjoys a terrific pedigree, and also turns up in the Chevrolet Corvette.
Now the Maloo offers a similar mix but with a highly unusual twist; it uses a two-door saloon-derived pick-up body, a car type that Australians call a utility vehicle - or ute for short. That alone means it stands out from the crowd even more than its attention-seeking predecessors. My test car was also a very vivid shade of yellow, which, by bizarre coincidence, recalled the colour scheme usually applied to one of the few other car-derived pick-up trucks offered for sale in the UK in recent years, the Skoda Felicia Fun – although the similarities end there.
And in the unlikely event that you don’t see the Maloo coming, you will probably hear it; the experience of driving it will be instantly familiar to anyone who has spent time with the Monaro or VXR8, and revolves mainly around the power, performance and, above all, sound, of the V8 engine which rumbles and roars in the traditional manner when extended. And as in the case of the Monaro and the VXR8, there’s a mild surprise, which is that while the Maloo doesn’t match the sophistication of most fast European cars, it’s nothing like as rough and ready as you might expect – either to drive or to sit in. And how does the Maloo do as a pick-up? Well it’s pretty unlikely that anyone is going to use one as a serious load-carrier, but the payload bay is generously proportioned and has a nicely designed and well finished lid, so it is perfectly usable.
The snags? Well fuel consumption and emissions are much higher than those of even some of the most powerful European cars, but a bigger problem is the Maloo’s price. When Vauxhall was able to offer early Monaros in the UK for less than £30,000 they represented something of a bargain, but a strong Australian dollar means that the Maloo now sells for more than £50,000. That puts it up against some pretty sophisticated European cars and makes it a lot harder to justify – although it is an awful lot of fun.
London 2012: Perri Shakes-Drayton breaks through to Games medal zone - The Guardian
Perri Shakes-Drayton gave an emphatic performance here on Friday night, running a new personal best in the 400 metres hurdles that lifts her to joint second in the world just weeks from the Olympic Games. Despite unfavourable weather conditions the 23-year-old smashed her personal best to break 54seconds for the first time in her career and win in 53.77seconds against a world class field that included the Olympic champion, Melaine Walker, and the European champion Irina Davydova.
Only Natalya Antyukh of Russia has run faster this year — in a time of 53.40secs — while Davydova lagged behind Shakes-Drayton by almost a second. The time ranks the East Londoner the second fastest Briton of all time behind Sally Gunnell and marks a breakthrough for a young woman so long talked about as a potential talent.
"I'm over the moon at the time," said Shakes-Drayton, who has not improved her personal best since 2010, "today I thought it's an opportunity to race against the best girls and I haven't really had the chance. I've had niggles and I've had to pull out of races as a precaution. I thought today: 'Come on girl, pull your socks up' and went for it. I had aggression and belief in myself. I had a very good day at the office today and it gives me confidence. I've just got to keep going as I'm going.
She added: "I'm very happy with today's performance. I wanted a season's best so I'm very happy. I know I'm doing the right thing with my coach so roll on the Olympics."
Meanwhile Dai Greene, the 400m hurdles world champion, had to settle for second place against the world's fastest man in his event this year – Javier Culson – running 48.10secs while the Puerto Rican posted a new world lead in 47.78secs. Greene's time is his second best this season — having run a new personal best in Paris last week of 47.84secs following a knee operation during the winter months, which had threatened to derail his Olympic campaign. The former world champion Bershawn Jackson was disqualified from the field after a false start.
Britain's Lawrence Okoye finished third in the discus, behind the defending Olympic champion Gerd Kanter, throwing 63.33 in rainy conditions.
Meanwhile Debbie Dunn, the former world indoor champion over 400m, has withdrawn from the US Olympic team after a sample she gave at the national trials revealed an elevated testosterone/epitestosterone level. Dunn, 34, finished fourth at the US trials but had been selected for the women's 4x400m relay. Dunn released a statement confirming the report. "I have been informed by the US Anti-Doping Agency that a sample I gave at the US Olympic Trials contains an elevated testosterone/epitestosterone level," the statement said.
"While I work with USADA to resolve this matter, I am withdrawing from my relay pool position for the 2012 Olympic Games. I do not want any issue like this to distract from my team-mates's focus for the biggest meet of their lives. I wish Team USA best in London as I work toward resolving this matter."
Embrace London's distance learning courses and reap the rewards - Daily Telegraph
There are now more than 50,000 students from 180 countries participating in London’s International Programmes, taking a bewildering array of distance learning courses under the aegis of one of the 12 University of London colleges affiliated to the programmes. The latest course on offer, from 2012-13, is a Combined Degree Scheme, allowing students to take a major and minor subject, perhaps wildly different in content. When it comes to careers, it would seem, fewer and fewer people are prepared to put all their eggs in one basket.
While some London students are happy to study for the sake of study, the great majority, not surprisingly, have a hard-headed professional agenda. In an ever more complex world, where people know that their lives can be profoundly shaped by bankers in Frankfurt or New York, but not always how or why, University of London MBAs and other business-related degrees are particularly sought after, as students from as far afield as Shanghai and Melbourne try to beef up their CVs and keep ahead of the pack.
“Our MBA students come from all over the world and all walks of life,” says Mike Kerrison, director of academic development for the University of London International Programmes. “They appreciate the flexibility of our programmes, as they often find themselves moving around the globe, whether for career or family reasons. But what is gratifying, from our point of view, is how they nearly always tell us how useful the MBA has been in advancing their careers, often leading directly to a promotion.”
MBA students are often assumed to be corporate careerists, ambitious and upwardly mobile, using an MBA as a stepping stone to an eventual board level appointment. But many are simply would-be entrepreneurs realising that they need some professional know-how if their businesses are to prosper. Often the best way to start a successful business is to study, in forensic detail, other successful businesses in the same field.
Just as a would-be Olympic medallist could learn from studying videos of Usain Bolt or Sir Steve Redgrave, so someone starting up an online retail business in their garage in Singapore could do worse than study how Bill Gates or Sir Richard Branson made their billions. An MBA, by itself, guarantees nothing. But it teaches students how to subject business plans to proper, rigorous scrutiny, so that elementary mistakes, hopefully, can be avoided.
“That is the beauty of a good MBA”, says Kerrison. “It is as relevant to an entrepreneur wanting to use academic theory to underpin their own business ideas as it is to someone working within a corporate environment, whether at board level or in middle management.”
While London offers a range of specialist business-related degrees and diplomas in areas such as finance and IT, its MBA in International Management, delivered by Royal Holloway College, is probably the ideal course for students wanting to learn to think strategically in a global business environment. It is a demanding course, not suitable for dilettantes, but it covers all the bases.
“What we find among all our students is a real passion for the subject they are pursuing,” says Kerrison. “That is hugely important to us as we place a high value on lifelong learning.”
Think of a London MBA as a 100m sprint and you are likely to be disappointed. Think of it as a marathon, gruelling but ultimately satisfying, and you are likely to last the distance, even finish among the medals.
This article was originally published in The Telegraph Weekly World Edition
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