Heroin overdose ends scandalous life of Bismarck's descendant

The scandalous life of Count Gottfried von Bismarck, playboy descendant of Germany's greatest statesman, has ended from a heroin overdose. The count, who was 44, was found dead when paramedics broke into his Chelsea flat at the weekend.

The ambulance was called by an estate agent who was selling the property, after the agency had failed to contact the count for several days. The flat was almost empty as the sale was close to completion. Drugs equipment was found near the body.

Bismarck achieved notoriety as an undergraduate in 1986, when he hosted a drug-fuelled party in his rooms at Christ Church College, Oxford, which culminated in the death from a heroin overdose of Olivia Channon, the 22-year-old daughter of a Conservative government minister, Paul Channon.

Bismarck had a reputation among fellow students for dressing up in either lederhosen or women's clothes, lipstick and fishnet stockings, and for hosting wild parties for the children of the rich and titled.

Olivia Channon, whose father was one of the richest men in the House of Commons, had been celebrating the completion of her finals, and was found dead in the morning, in Bismarck's bed with a male student asleep beside her. Bismarck left the country after the inquest.

The police found amphetamines on the young Bismarck, who was arrested and charged. At the inquest, he denied knowing that Channon had taken drugs, and "wept like a child". He was ordered back to the family castle in Germany by his father, Prince Ferdinand, and sent to a clinic in Hamburg to be treated for alcoholism. A servant was sent to Oxford with a chequebook to pay off his debts at the city's pubs, wine bars, restaurants and tailors.

He returned after three months to stand trial, and was fined £80. The woman who collected drugs for Channon five days before her death, Rosie Johnson, was jailed for nine months, and later published a book about her prison experiences. It included the detail that, when she was arrested, the officers were shocked to discover that she had forgotten to put on knickers.

Bismarck, the great great grandson of Prussia's "Iron Chancellor", worked for a firm that helped to restructure businesses in East Germany after the collapse of communism, and for hedge funds. He later came out as gay, and is said to have cut a rather odd figure, being tall, bald and with a slightly oversized head. He took occasional film roles, playing himself. Last August, he was back in the news when - once again - he hosted a party that ended in tragedy. At about 5.30am, a 38-year-old man, Anthony Casey, fell 60 feet from the roof garden of his flat into a concrete courtyard after what was described as a long "gay orgy".

Mr Casey had 5.4mg of cocaine in his body, five times the potentially lethal dose. The inquest heard that he had gone out for fresh air, and apparently slipped on mud or algae at the edge of the roof garden, which had only a low wall.