READ: Lord Lucan’s wife’s unsettling personal letters revealing torrid family life with the infamous Earl who she says was ‘paranoid’ before nanny Sandra Rivett’s death
Five decades ago, the 7th Earl of Lucan disappeared without a trace after his children’s nanny was found beaten to death in 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 his estranged wife.
His disappearance remains shrouded in mystery, especially after his wife Veronica Duncan blamed him for the death of their nanny on the night of November 7, 1974.
She staggered into a pub near their home, covered ‘from 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 captured Britain’s attention – through the eyes of a man still seeking justice for Sandra.
The BBC Two program follows Hampshire builder and Sandra’s son, Neil Berriman, on his search for the truth about what happened to Lord Lucan – and offers a shocking new theory about the earl’s whereabouts.
Richard John Bingham – aka 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 after the murder of their nanny
Prior to his disappearance, Lord Lucan had been dealing with a series of personal problems, including a gambling addiction, mounting debts, 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, stormed into The Plumbers Arms pub – apparently injured – in the Belgravia area and told the shocked room that her husband had attacked her.
Lord Lucan later fled to a friend’s estate in East Sussex, where he reportedly told his mother and friend that he had intervened in an attack on his family.
The next day, November 8, 1974, the Earl disappeared without a trace, after apparently abandoning his car in Newhaven. The interior was smeared with blood and in the trunk was a piece of bandaged lead pipe – similar to the one found at the murder scene.
The police issued a warrant for his arrest, but Lord Lucan was never found, although he was later found declared dead in absentia in October 1999.
However, extraordinary letters from 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 further apart.
The typewritten letters were discovered by builders working on the family guest house in Belgravia that Lady Lucan – who died in September 2017 – moved into in 1977.
Lord Lucan’s disappearance is particularly mysterious, as the perpetrator behind Sandra Rivett’s gruesome death was never caught, leading many to believe or suggest that the Earl may have been responsible – including his own wife.
Pictured: Sandra Rivett, Lord Lucan’s nanny, 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 guest house in Belgravia that Lady Lucan, who died last year, moved into in 1977. In this letter she writes to her lawyers to instruct them to sue the American magazine The New Review for defamation. because of a ‘defamatory’ article
Lady Lucan goes on to list the points in the article with which she disagrees and presents them under a series of figures
In the 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 ab****’ in a negative profile in an American magazine.
In one conversation, she writes that the legal proceedings “bring out the worst in my husband,” who, according to The Times, has become “paranoid” with jealousy.
The couple’s relationship had deteriorated years ago and at the time of his flight they were arguing over the future of their three children.
The letters, which shed new light on the row, were found in the £3,250,000 house in Eaton Row, west London, which is being sold by Knight Frank after a £1 million renovation.
Lady Lucan’s longest letter is an angry instruction to sue the New Review magazine for libel for a piece in which they depicted her as a ‘bastard’ whose ‘neurotic’ behavior had taken a toll on her husband.
In a 10-page rebuke, she wrote: “I claim to be a perfectly normal person whose marriage failed mainly because of financial problems.”
Lady Lucan also revealed her anger after her husband ‘wrongly assumed’ she had a mental illness.
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 about not seeing security for her children.’
She complains about several “defamatory and inaccurate” allegations in the article in The New Review
Lady Lucan described herself as a ‘perfectly normal person whose marriage failed mainly due to financial problems’
In this letter, Lady Lucan’s lawyer responds to her assignment to sue the publishers of The New Review
Notes on Lady Lucan’s lawsuit against The New Review, including several games of noughts and crosses at the bottom
The aristocrat also wrote about how her life became isolated when she was sent away by her former friends following her divorce from Lord Lucan.
Other letters in the collection include letters written to Lady Lucan by a journalist from The News Of The World and another of her lawyers.
Tragically, Veronica died by suicide in 2017 at the age of 80 from a deadly cocktail of drugs and alcohol, an inquest heard.
She died alone in the house where the family’s nanny had been murdered fifty years ago, having previously diagnosed herself with Parkinson’s disease.
The second episode of Lucan airs tonight at 9pm on BBC Two.