Few dispute that Lady Beth Douglas met her squalid and premature death because of the criminal drug trade. Someone almost certainly then helped Lady Beth, who was just 18 and had never previously injected the drug, fill a syringe, before inserting it into a vein on her right arm.
Several people then saw her collapse on a filthy sofa, apparently falling asleep. Lady Beth Douglas, 18, pictured died while at a house party in Notting Hill. Many of them were still there at about 1. There was, in short, ample evidence of very serious criminality that night.
A property in the heart of London had, after all, been used to supply large quantities of class A drugs to several people, in the presence of many onlookers, including its tenant. Yet, despite these pertinent facts, the police failed to arrest β let alone charge β a single person, and do not seem to have launched a criminal investigation.
At her inquest, her father, the Marquess, complained that the host of the party, who allowed his property to be used for the distribution and taking of drugs, was not even compelled to give evidence. Just two years before her death she was an academically-gifted violin prodigy.
Last week, when the Mail visited the property, owned by the Peabody Trust housing association and situated in Pembridge Square, we saw one occupant taking cocaine in broad daylight. This public spectacle speaks volumes about the creaking state of the criminal justice system.
