Five decades ago, the 7th Earl of Lucan disappeared without a trace after his children’s nanny was found beaten to death in her home in Belgravia, London.
Richard John Bingham, also known as Lord Lucan, disappeared on November 8, 1974, leaving behind his three young children and his ex-wife.
His disappearance remains a mystery, especially after his wife Veronica Duncan blamed him for the death of their babysitter on the night of November 7, 1974.
She staggered into a pub near her home, covered “from head to toe in blood” and accused Lord Lucan of attacking her and killing Sandra in her home before fleeing the scene.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Lucan’s disappearance, a three-part BBC documentary series will re-examine the unsolved case that captivated Britain’s interest, through the eyes of a man still seeking justice for Sandra.
The BBC Two show follows Hampshire builder and Sandra’s son, Neil Berriman, as he searches for the truth of what happened to Lord Lucan, and offers a shocking new theory about the earl’s whereabouts.
Richard John Bingham, also known as Lord Lucan (left), disappeared on November 8, 1974, leaving behind his three young children and ex-wife (right).
Veronica Lucan, wife of the late Lord Lucan, who disappeared after the murder of his nanny
Before his disappearance, Lord Lucan had faced a number of personal struggles, including a gambling addiction, spiraling debt, and a bitter custody battle that drove him further into an unhealthy fixation with his wife.
On the night Sandra Rivett was found dead, Lord Lucan’s ex-wife Veronica Mary Duncan burst into The Plumbers Arms pub – evidently injured – 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 their family.
The following day, November 8, 1974, the Earl disappeared without a trace, evidently having abandoned his car in Newhaven. The interiors were stained with blood and the trunk contained a piece of bandaged lead pipe, similar to one found at the crime scene.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Lord Lucan, but Lord Lucan was never found and he was later detained. declared dead in absentia in October 1999.
However, extraordinary letters written by Lady Lucan unearthed in 2019 have shed new light on her torrid relationship with her husband, before the events of November 7, 1974 tore the family even further apart.
The typewritten letters were discovered by builders working on the family guesthouse in Belgravia that Lady Lucan, who died in September 2017, moved into in 1977.
Lord Lucan’s disappearance is particularly mysterious as the culprit behind Sandra Rivett’s gruesome death has never been caught, leading many to believe or suggest that 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 the TV series ‘Lord Lucan: My Husband the Truth’ – June 2017
Lord Richard John Bingham with Veronica Duncan on the day their engagement was announced in 1963
The typewritten letters were discovered by builders working on the family guesthouse in Belgravia that Lady Lucan, who died last year, moved into in 1977. In it, she writes to her lawyers asking them to sue the American magazine The New Review for defamation. for a ‘defamatory’ article
Lady Lucan goes on to list the points in the article that she disagrees with, presenting them under a series of numbers.
In letters to her lawyer, Lady Lucan documents her bitter battle with her husband over custody of their three children and complains about being “portrayed as an a****” 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 says has become “paranoid” with envy, according to The Times.
The couple’s relationship had deteriorated years earlier and, at the time of their escape, they were arguing about the future of their three children.
The letters shedding new light on the dispute were found in the £3.25 million house in Eaton Row, west London, which Knight Frank is selling after £1 million in renovations.
Lady Lucan’s longest letter is a furious order to sue the New Review magazine for libel over an article in which she was portrayed as a ‘b****’ whose ‘neurotic’ behavior had taken its toll on her husband.
In a ten-page rebuke, he wrote: “I affirm that I am a perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong primarily due to financial problems.”
Lady Lucan also revealed her anger after her husband ‘wrongly assumed’ she was mentally ill.
The letter said: “He wrongly assumed I was suffering from a medical problem, but if I was suffering from anything it was the normal fears any mother would feel if she saw no safety for her children.”
He complains about several ‘defamatory and inaccurate’ accusations in The New Review article.
Lady Lucan described herself as “a perfectly normal person whose marriage went badly due mainly to financial problems.”
In this letter, Lady Lucan’s lawyer responds to her instruction to sue the editors of The New Review.
Notes on Lady Lucan’s legal case against The New Review, including several games of tic-tac-toe at the end
The aristocrat also wrote about how her life became isolated when her former friends cheated on her after her separation 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 committed suicide at the age of 80 due to a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol, an inquest was told.
She died alone in the same house where the family’s nanny had been murdered 50 years ago, after previously self-diagnosing herself with Parkinson’s disease.
Lucan’s second episode airs tonight on BBC Two at 9pm
