Hans Kristian Rausing, an heir to the Tetra Pak packaging fortune, admitted he hid the body of his "beloved" wife Eva for two months in a barricaded bedroom in the upstairs annex of their mansion because he was unable to "let her leave", Isleworth crown court has heard.
Her resting place, the court heard, was a squalid room to which entry was banned for anyone but the couple, and which for the last four years had become their home as they retreated from the world in the grip of a drug addiction that had blighted their adult lives.
When finally faced with the reality of her death, after the police arrested him for driving under the influence of drugs on 9 July, Rausing told a psychiatrist: "I know it sounds selfish but I just didn't want her to leave."
Appearing in court on Wednesday, Rausing, 49, spoke only to answer to his name, and to reply "guilty", when asked how he pleaded to the charge that he prevented the decent and lawful burial of his wife of 19 years.
He was sentenced to 10 months in prison suspended for two years, and ordered to undergo a two-year drug rehabilitation programme.
His only detailed comments on why he had left his wife's body decomposing under a pile of clothes next to a bed in their ramshackle room came in a statement he made to police which was read to the court.
"My condition has stabilised," he said. "I fully understand my beloved wife of 19 years has died and I am devastated … by her death.
"I do not have a very coherent recollection of the events leading up to and since Eva's death save to assure you that I have never wished her or done her any harm.
"I did not supply her with drugs. I have been traumatised since her death.
"I did not feel able to confront the reality of her death … I tried to carry on as if her death had not happened. I batted away inquiries about her. I took some measures to reduce the smell. I believe in the period since she died I have suffered some form of breakdown."
Sitting behind the glass-fronted dock, Rausing wore a pair of headphones and blinked slowly as the court heard Alex Cameron QC, representing him, describe how the addictions the couple had overcome for 11 years took hold again when they succumbed to the urge to have a glass of champagne on millennium eve.
By 2008 Rausing had become an effective recluse and the couple lived together in the upstairs room on the second floor of their mansion in Chelsea, barring anyone else from entering.
"They were deeply ashamed of their situation, and the thought of meeting people and explaining their situation was too much to bear," said Cameron.
Rausing's only human contact was with his wife, on whom he was completely dependant, the barrister said.
Until that point the couple – who met in their mid 20s in drug rehab, married in 1992 and had four children – had lived for some 11 years as a normal, happy family.
But Rausing, in particular, had always been plagued by a reserve and insecurity.
"Despite or because of the economic circumstances of his upbringing, the defendant had always had unusually strong social anxiety, and feelings of inferiority and a tendency to medicate his anxiety by drug taking and to deal with emotional conflict by denial," Cameron said.
Rausing was present when his wife, 48, died of suspected heart failure coupled with drug taking on the morning of 7 May – a time of death established by her pacemaker, which was fitted some years before to treat heart problems.
His wife had not long returned from California on 29 April, and had seen her financial adviser on 3 May, because she had been concerned about her husband's increasingly chaotic lifestyle.
Faced with her death he was "initially numb and paralysed".
"He has no recollection at all of the next 10 or 12 hours," said Cameron. "He didn't move the body. He described her as appearing quite restful.
"He felt quite unable to face up to the fact that Eva had died and almost like a small child couldn't face up to telling anyone else, so took steps to delay the moment of facing up to the reality."
But the truth began to unfold when Rausing was arrested on 9 July while driving erratically in Wandsworth, south London.
In his car the police found large amounts of post addressed to his wife, and drug paraphernalia including a crack pipe in the footwell of the vehicle. Tests showed the presence of cocaine, morphine, temazepam and diazepam in his body.
When asked where his wife was, Rausing welled up, and said she had gone to California two weeks earlier.
During a search of his six-storey home in Cadogan Place later police noticed the staff were hesitant when they asked for access to the second-floor annex.
James O'Connell, prosecuting, said: "Officers took the lift up to the second floor and as they did so they noticed a smell indicating to the officers that there may be a decomposing body there.
"They noticed a room which had been sealed by locks and the use of gaffer tape. On entry it was discovered in a very untidy state.
"There was a bed and on top of it a pile of clothes and other material. It was under this pile of clothes that a body in an advanced state of decomposition was found.
"It was noted subsequently that some deodorising powder had been used on the clothing and items on top of the body,"
Sentencing Rausing on Wednesday, Judge Richard McGregor-Johnson said: "If ever there was an illustration of the utterly destructive effect of drug misuse on an individual and their family, it is to be found in the facts of this case.
"Your relapse into the misuse of drugs together with your wife … is graphically illustrated by the difference between the rooms that visitors saw in your home and the utter squalor of the room you really lived in."
Had he been no more than a rich drug user, he would have received an immediate jail term, but the judge said he took into account Rausing's mental state at the time and his continuing need for treatment.
Rausing also admitted driving while under the influence of drugs, and received a two-month concurrent suspended jail sentence for the offence.
