A former impersonator who converted to Buddhism has denied claims she misses fellow Brit Lord Lucan in a new BBC documentary.
Cameras followed Neil Berriman, the son of murdered Lucan nanny Sandra Rivett, as he tracked down the man he believed was the missing aristocrat, now living in Australia.
Berriman accused “Old Etonian” Christopher Bell, 87, of being Lucan and of killing his mother on November 7, 1974, before going on the run for decades.
In a strange confrontation over a WhatsApp video call, Bell initially appears to confirm his suspicions, but then tells the BBC: “I don’t know who the hell Lord Lucan is.” And he adds: “I can assure you that I am not that man, I never have been, I never will be.”
The brutal murder of Mrs Rivett at the Lucan family home in Belgravia, London, shocked Britain and sparked a five-decade search for the main suspect, the seventh Earl of Lucan.
Neil Berriman accused ‘Old Etonian’ Christopher Bell (pictured), 87, of being Lucan and killing his mother on November 7, 1974, before going on the run for decades.
Lord Lucan with his fiancée Veronica Duncan in 1963. The brutal murder of Mrs Rivett at the Lucan family home in Belgravia, London, shocked Britain and sparked a five-decade search for the main suspect, the 7th Earl of Lucan .
Neil Berriman, son of Sandra Rivett, the murdered nanny who worked for Lord Lucan
Sandra Rivett was brutally murdered in the dark basement kitchen of Lord Lucan’s family home in Belgravia.
Pictured: Police dog handlers search for Lord Lucan in the hills above Newhaven Harbor following the aristocrat’s disappearance.
Berriman, who Rivett gave up for adoption as a baby, spent years trying to locate his missing companion, and the new BBC Two documentary shows the dramatic moment he confronts Bell.
During the exchange, Berriman told Mr Bell: “I know you are Lord Lucan”, but added: “I don’t want to do anything about it.”
Mr. Bell replies, “There’s really not much you can do about it, it’s all in the hands of the divine.”
Mr Berriman, a builder from Hampshire, asks about “the woman you killed”, and Mr Bell replies: “She came from a very horrendous background.” “I was suffering a lot of pain and stress.”
During the often confusing exchange, Mr Bell continues: “I have no memory of killing anyone, of taking anyone’s life… As far as I know, I have never taken anyone’s life.”
Bell claims to be descended from the English aristocracy, having been educated at Eton and having been a friend of Princess Margaret. But he also says he left Britain in 1966, eight years before Lucan’s murder, and worked as a “female impersonator” in Canada before traveling to India and meeting Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
In the documentary, Bell says he was conceived “in a magical ritual at Stonehenge” and that his biological father was a puppeteer who performed at Buckingham Palace for Princess Elizabeth (the late Queen) and her sister, Princess Margaret.
His birth certificate names him as Derek Crowther, born in Islington, north London, in 1936, the son of a railway carriage cleaner.
At one point, Berriman, 57, is convinced that his suspicions have been confirmed by artificial intelligence facial recognition technology that compares Bell’s features with those of Lord Lucan.
It has been almost 50 years since British aristocrat Lord Lucan (pictured), 39, disappeared without a trace.
She disappeared after nanny Sandra Rivett (pictured) was beaten to death in the family home.
The Plumbers Arms, where Lady Lucan ran after finding Sandra dead in her house.
Veronica Mary Duncan, wife of Lord Lucan (pictured here with him)
Lady Lucan (pictured) later died aged 80
But analysis by a team of Home Office-approved reconnaissance experts ruled it out in 2022. The documentary also showed investigative journalist Glen Campbell telling Berriman he believes they were wrong, and Bell’s vehement denial that he be the missing pair.
The three-part documentary follows Mr. Berriman as he reveals how he found out he was adopted and that Rivett was his biological mother.
His battered body was discovered in a mailbag in the bloodstained cellar of Lucan’s home after his wife, Lady Veronica Lucan, ran to a nearby pub screaming that her nanny had been murdered.
Lucan’s car was found abandoned, soaked in blood, in Newhaven, East Sussex.
An inquest jury later declared him a murderer, but he has never been found.
– Lucan’s first episode will air on BBC Two tonight at 9pm and then on BBC iPlayer.
