Aristocrat Count von Bismarck killed by record amount of cocaine

But his hedonistic life was haunted by tragedy after two people died at his drug-fuelled parties. Finally it cost him his own life too, after a two-day binge on cocaine and heroin.

In the run-up to his death he injected himself with cocaine every hour, an inquest heard yesterday.

A pathologist told the hearing the 44-year-old's body contained the highest level of the drug he had ever seen. And a coroner said the case should act as a warning of the deadly potential of cocaine.

The count's decomposing body was found three days after his death on a grubby mattress at his £5million Chelsea flat, which was up for sale.

It was from the roof terrace of this penthouse apartment that a partygoer plunged 60ft to his death last August after a gay orgy hosted by the homosexual von Bismarck.

Twenty years ago, the count was at the centre of another scandal. As a student at Christ Church, Oxford, he hosted the notorious party at which Olivia Channon, 22-year-old daughter of Tory Cabinet minister Paul Channon, died of a heroin overdose.

Yesterday details of von Bismarck's drug dependency were revealed at the Westminster inquest.

The great-great-grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who unified his country in 1871, had only recently come out of rehab when he embarked on the drugs binge.

A friend, Paul Hillstead, said he and the aristocrat – whose full name was Gottfried Alexander Leopold Graf von Bismarck-Schonhausen – had planned to go to a concert on the evening of June 28.

But when Mr Hillstead arrived at the count's flat, von Bismarck was 'as high as a kite' and they went to a nearby pub instead.

The count drank a bottle of wine then returned to his flat, where Mr Hillstead saw him inject himself with cocaine once an hour until he finally passed out at around 5am on June 29. When Mr Hillstead left the apartment the next day, he said the count was snoring.

He said: 'Gottfried had been up since Wednesday morning until early Friday morning. When he collapsed after a binge of partying it wasn't unlike him to sleep for 24 or 36 hours.'

Tests on his body revealed that the levels of cocaine and heroin in his blood were both 'in the fatal range', the inquest heard. According to toxicologists, just 0.99mg of cocaine per litre of blood is enough to kill, but von Bismarck's level was almost five times that amount.

Pathologist Professor Sebastian Lucas said Bismarck had advanced liver disease caused by years of alcohol abuse as well as HIV and hepatitis B and C.

Westminster coroner Dr Paul Knapman ruled that the count died of heart failure caused by a heroin and cocaine overdose.

He said: 'It appears that drugs played a significant feature in recent times in the life of Count von Bismarck and has certainly played a major part in his death.

'I hope this may serve as an education that cocaine usage damages your heart and may kill.'