RELATIVE OF 'BOSIE' DIED IN FLAT PLUNGE - Descendant of man who instigated Oscar Wilde prosecution, found dead

Published: 05 November 2010
by JOSH LOEB

A DESCENDENT of Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas warned a nurse that he “could jump off Beachy Head” a week before he was found dead on a Bayswater council estate.

An inquest heard how Lord Milo Douglas, 34, the great-great nephew of Bosie, was discovered on July 21 last year having fallen from a fifth-floor balcony.

Lord Douglas, who lived in Fermoy Road, Westbourne Park, was the son of the 12th Marquess of Queensberry. His ancestors included the ninth Marquess, who in 1895 instigated the prosecution of Oscar Wilde for his affair with Bosie.

During a poetry reading at the Calder Bookshop in Waterloo in November last year Milo’s uncle, Lord Gawain Douglas, teacher and a poet, referred to the fact that there had been a number of suicides among his ancestors in the “Black Douglas” line which goes back to the 14th century.

Giving evidence at Westminster Coroner’s Court on Wednesday, Louise Farmery, a nurse at Bayswater Medical Centre, said Lord Douglas had told her he was contemplating suicide when he saw her on July 14.

She told the inquest: “I said did he have any plans to kill himself and he said he could jump off Beachy Head.”

Ms Farmery referred Lord Douglas, who had a previous diagnosis of manic depression, to the North Westminster Crisis Resolution Team (CRT) – but his GP, Dr Daya Silva, said he did not know what work the CRT did or how many members of staff worked there.

When asked by coroner Dr Paul Knapman whether he thought the organisation “left something to be desired”, he replied: “Yes, I would go along with you there.”

Lord Douglas’s mother, Lady Alexandra Queensberry, said her son had been dissatisfied with care he had been receiving and had “begged” to be hospitalised.

Addressing Dr Anthony Emezie, a locum doctor working for Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, she said: “You saw Milo on July 15. He told you that morning that he had thought of throwing himself from a building. He also said he had been having suicidal thoughts and that his sleep had been disturbed as he had been up two or three times from suicidal thoughts. Did you not think that maybe he should be admitted to hospital?”

Dr Emezie replied: “As far as I was concerned he was still treatable in the home environment.”

Tracia Doble, from the Crisis Resolution Team, said Lord Douglas had “seemed well” when she saw him two days before his death and that he had displayed “calm and appropriate behaviour”.

Mary Quirk, also from the team, said Lord Douglas had told her he had “had thoughts of hurting someone who was very close to him” but she had not believed hospitalisation was necessary.

Lady Queensberry described her son as “a completely genuine human being” who worked for charity Action Against Hunger and had taught English in Italian state schools.

She added: “He was interested in the lives of everyone he came across, from sometimes obscure relations to people he met on trains. He cared deeply about the disadvantaged and underprivileged – social misfits, ethnic minorities, anyone who struggled in life for basic rights.

“He had, always, a great faith in humanity and said beauty is everywhere, we just have to see it.”

However, she said he had left notes in which he expressed his concerns about his medication and the psychiatric help he was receiving.

At a poetry reading in November last year Milo’s uncle the poet Gawain Douglas, referring to the fact that there had been a number of suicides among his ancestors, said there was a streak of “madness” in the so-called “Black Douglas” line.

The cause of death was given as multiple injuries consistent with a fall from a height. The inquest was adjourned and will resume before Christmas.