Five decades ago, the 7th Earl of Lucan vanished without a trace after his children’s nanny was found bludgeoned to death at his home in Belgravia, London.
Richard John Bingham – also known as Lord Lucan – disappeared on November 8, 1974, leaving behind his three young children and estranged wife.
His disappearance has remained shrouded in mystery, especially after his wife Veronica Duncan blamed him for their nanny’s death on the night of November 7, 1974.
She staggered into a pub near their home, covered ‘head to toe in blood’, and accused Lord Lucan of attacking her and killing Sandra at their home before fleeing the scene.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Lucan’s disappearance, a three-part BBC docuseries will re-examine the cold case that captivated Britain’s interest – through the eyes of one man still seeking justice for Sandra.
The BBC Two programme follows Hampshire builder, and Sandra’s son, Neil Berriman along on his quest for the truth of what happened to Lord Lucan – and offers a shocking new theory about the earl’s wherabouts.
Richard John Bingham – also known as Lord Lucan (left) – disappeared on November 8, 1974, leaving behind his three young children and estranged wife (right)
Veronica Lucan, wife of the missing Lord Lucan, who disappeared following the murder of their nanny
Prior to his disappearance, Lord Lucan had been facing a series of personal struggles prior, including a gambling addiction, spiraling debt, and a bitter custody battle that further led to an unhealthy fixation on his wife.
On the night Sandra Rivett was found dead, Lord Lucan’s estranged wife, Veronica Mary Duncan, burst into The Plumbers Arms pub – evidently wounded – in the Belgravia area and told the shocked room that her husband had attacked her.
Lord Lucan later fled to a friend’s property in East Sussex, where he reportedly told his mother and friend that he had intervened in an attack on his family.
The following day, on November 8, 1974, the Earl vanished without a trace, after evidently abandoning his car in Newhaven. The interiors were stained with blood and the boot contained a piece of bandaged lead pipe – similar to one found at the murder scene.
Police issued a warrant for his arrest, but Lord Lucan was never found, and he was later declared dead in absentia in October, 1999.
However, extraordinary letters written by Lady Lucan unearthed in 2019 have thrown a new light on her torrid relationship with her husband, before the events of November 7, 1974 further tore the family apart.
The typed letters were uncovered by builders working on the family guest house in Belgravia that Lady Lucan – who died in September 2017 – moved in to in 1977.
Lord Lucan’s disappearance is particularly mysterious, as the culprit behind Sandra Rivett’s grisly death has never been caught, leading many to believe or suggest the Earl may have been responsible – including his own wife
Pictured: Lord Lucan’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, who was found dead in the family home on November 7, 1974
Lady Lucan in ‘Lord Lucan: My Husband the Truth’ TV Series – Jun 2017
Lord Richard John Bingham with Veronica Duncan on the day their engagement was announced in 1963
The typed letters were uncovered by builders working on the family guest house in Belgravia that Lady Lucan, who died last year, moved in to in 1977. In this one she writes to her lawyers to instruct them to sue US magazine The New Review for libel over a ‘defamatory’ article
Lady Lucan continues listing the points in the article that she disagrees with, presenting them under a series of numbers
In the letters to her solicitor, Lady Lucan documents her bitter battle with her husband over the custody of their three children, and complains about being ‘portrayed as a b****’ in a negative profile in an American magazine.
In one exchange, she writes that the legal proceedings are ‘bringing out the worst in my husband’ who she said has been driven ‘paranoid’ with envy, according to The Times.
The couple’s relationship had soured years before, and at the time of his flight, they were arguing over the future of their three children.
The letters that shed a new light on the row were found at the £3,250,000 house in Eaton Row, west London, which is being sold by Knight Frank after £1million worth of renovations.
Lady Lucan’s longest letter is a furious instruction to sue the New Review magazine for libel for a piece where they portrayed her as a ‘b****’ whose ‘neurotic’ behaviour had taken a toll on her husband.
In a 10-page rebuke, she wrote: ‘I submit that I am a perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong mainly because of financial problems.’
Lady Lucan also revealed her anger after her husband ‘wrongly assumed’ she had a mental illness.
The letter read: ‘He wrongly assumed I was suffering from a medical problem, but if I was suffering from anything at all it was the normal fears which any mother would feel if she could see no security for her children.’
She complains about several ‘defamatory and inaccurate’ accusations in The New Review article
Lady Lucan described herself as a ‘perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong mainly due to financial problems’
In this letter, Lady Lucan’s solicitor replies to her instruction to sue the publishers of The New Review
Notes about Lady Lucan’s legal case against The New Review, including several games of noughts and crosses at the bottom
The aristocrat also wrote about how her life spiralled into isolation as she was palmed off by her former friends after her split from Lord Lucan.
Other letters in the collection include ones written to Lady Lucan by a journalist from The News Of The World and another from her lawyers.
Tragically, in 2017, Veronica died by suicide at the age of 80 from a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol, an inquest was told.
She died alone in the very home where the family’s nanny had been murdered 50 years ago, after previously self-diagnosing herself with Parkinson’s disease.
The second episode of Lucan airs tonight on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.