LONDON, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Hans Kristian Rausing, wealthy heir to a packaging dynasty, avoided jail Wednesday when sentenced in London for letting his wife's body decompose for weeks.
Rausing, a member of the family that owns the Swedish food packaging company Tetra Pak, was given a 10-month suspended custodial sentence in Isherwood Crown Court after admitting he denied his 48-year-old wife Eva a lawful and decent burial after her May 7 death.
The court heard a story of a loving couple's drug addiction and social isolation, Rausing's denial of his wife's death, and his admission to a psychiatrist, "I know it sounds selfish but I don't want her to leave," The Guardian reported
Regarded as one of Europe's richest women, the U.S.-born woman's decomposed body was found two months after her death under a pile of clothes behind a locked door in the couple's home in the fashionable Belgravia section of London. An official cause of death is pending the outcome of toxicology tests.
With the sentence, Judge Richard McGregor-Johnson ordered Rausing to undergo a two-year drug treatment program, the British newspaper said.
