Tonight:
4°c
Britain's sixth richest man and his wife fight demons together
Benedict Moore-Bridger, Evening Standard17 Jun 2008
Fleeing from a Chelsea house pursued by police is unusual behaviour for a billionaire. But not, perhaps, for Hans Kristian Rausing, Britain's sixth richest man.
As an heir to the Tetra Pak billions, Rausing, known to family and friends as Hans K, has a fortune to spend - and some of it he has squandered on drugs.
In April he and his wife Eva were arrested on suspicion of possessing crack cocaine and heroin.
Mrs Rausing was detained allegedly trying to smuggle small "wraps" of drugs into a reception at the American embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Scotland Yard was called and she was taken to Charing Cross police station for questioning. Officers then raided the Rausings' £5 million home and allegedly found £2,000 worth of drugs.
American-born Mrs Rausing said: "I have made a serious mistake which I very much regret. I intend to leave as soon as possible to seek the help that I very much need."
The alleged possession of drugs did not shock those who know the Rausings.
Their gilded existence has been in reality a backdrop to a life spent fighting hard against addictions they picked up in their youth.
The couple met while attending a rehab clinic in America, and although their arrests this year revealed their problems to the wider world, to their friends their addictions were no secret.
In fact, they have devoted much of their time and energy - and considerable financial resources - to helping others damaged by drugs.
Hans K uses money from an inherited trust to fund a number of charities, prompting Prince Charles, with whom he is on first-name terms, to call him "one very special philanthropist".
The cause closest to Hans K's heart is Mentor, a charity that runs projects in Britain and abroad to keep young people away from drugs. It operates in schools, universities and communities and claims to have helped more than a million children in 40 countries in the past 10 years.
Mrs Rausing has donated more than £600,000 to Mentor UK in the seven years since she helped found it with a donation of £100,000. The couple regularly attend its events, and on top of that run their own charitable trust, which gives away millions every year.
Mrs Rausing is a keen tennis player and takes a generous interest in the Mary Rose Trust, established to save Henry VIII's salvaged battleship. The couple have also given large amounts to the Royal Opera House, which they go to often. The group of people who will be most worried at the latest twist in the Rausings' lives will be their immediate family.
The family fortune began with their grandfather Ruben, a Swedish inventor who created the waxed paper carton that was the foundation of the Tetra Pak (later Tetra Laval) packaging empire.
Ruben's son, Hans, took over the firm with his brother and ran it from Lund, in southern Sweden, where Hans Kristian and his sisters, Lisbet and Sigrid, grew up.
Sigrid is a philanthropist in her own right, having founded the Sigrid Rausing Trust in 1995 which supports human rights charities. She also owns Granta.
She and Lisbet are said to be helping the Rausings, who have four children.
