The mystery of Lord Lucan, the ‘posh oaf’ accused of murder

A new Radio 4 podcast takes a deep dive into the notorious case of the missing Earl, 50 years after his disappearance

John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, was rarely out of the newspapers in the late 1970s and 1980s. Like many of my generation born around then, I grew up knowing his name and distinctively moustachioed face long before I had any idea why he was infamous. Now, in my new, 10-part series for Radio 4, I’ll dig into that question. 
Lord Lucan became a meme before memes were invented: the punchline to jokes about people or things that had mysteriously dis­appeared. As the world’s most famous missing person, he was often imagined to be hiding somewhere with the world’s most fam­ous missing racehorse, Shergar, stolen in Ireland in 1983.
Alongside the jokes, an industry in Lucanalia flourished: books, ­tele­vision documentaries, fictionalisations, and acres of newsprint. Through these, even as a child, I began to realise that the real events this story was rooted in were not funny at all, but dark and horrible. They were the violent murder of one woman and an assault on another. Some considered Lord Lucan guilty of these crimes, others were sure he was innocent. Every detail of the case was turned over again and again.
On the night of November 7, 1974, in the basement of the Lucans’s house in Belgravia, their children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was beaten to death with a length of lead piping and her body was stuffed into a United States mailbag (one of many mysteries surrounding the case is that the ­origin of this unusual bag has never been traced). Veronica, Lady Lucan, was also beaten, sustaining injuries to her head and the back of her throat. She claimed the perpetrator was her estranged husband. It was suggested that, in the dark, he had mistaken the nanny for her and killed the wrong woman – then tried to finish the job by killing her, as well, though she survived.
The couple had been engaged in a bitter custody battle over their three children and Lord Lucan now lived separately, in a rented flat nearby. By both of their accounts, the Lucans were in the house together that night. About half an hour after the attacks, Lady Lucan, covered in blood, fled to a nearby pub.
Lord Lucan bolted before the police arrived. He made a couple of telephone calls, then drove a ­borrowed car to the house of some friends in Uckfield, East Sussex. He wrote letters that night setting out his version of the story: that he had been passing the house when he saw through a window “a large man” attacking his wife. He rushed in to intervene. He believed Lady Lucan would accuse him of hiring the man to kill her, and he was going to “lie doggo for a bit”. Early the next morning, his borrowed car was abandoned in Newhaven, on the Sussex coast. Lord Lucan was never officially seen again.
Though the media built the extraordinary industry around this story, it was deluged with content from people closely connected to the case – including police officers, reporters, friends of the Lucans, and Lady Lucan herself. She often gave interviews offering new or changed details of that night, and even restaged the murder scene for a photographer from the Daily Express.
It was also fed by overwhelming interest on the part of the general public. Lord Lucan was “spotted” all over the world, from locations around Britain to southern Africa, India, Australia, and many more. Often, these sightings came from members of the public who were sincerely trying to help, though none resulted in a positive ­identification.
Others were hoaxes carried out by fame and fortune seekers, some astonishingly elaborate. In 1982, a team of American pranksters lured a British camera crew to an island in the Florida Keys, where they staged a shoot-out between men they claimed were Lord Lucan’s bodyguards and the fixers who had brought them there. The scene played on national tele­vision – but the pranksters later revealed that the “gunfire” had been Chinese ­firecrackers.
There are a few hundred ­murders every year in the United Kingdom, yet this case captured the public imagination like no other. Before their marriage fell apart, the Lucans were a glamorous and photo­genic couple. Further­more, the story tapped irresistibly into the British obsession with social class. 
Lord Lucan’s peerage went back to the 18th ­century; the 3rd Earl of Lucan commanded the ­cavalry division at the Battle of ­Balaclava, and ordered the charge of the Light Brigade. Lady Lucan, born Veronica ­Duncan, was herself preoccupied with class, perhaps because her own background was quite ordinary. She had grown up with her mother and stepfather above their business, the ­Wheatsheaf Inn, near Basingstoke. One policeman who worked on the case later remembered: “I’m a countess of the realm, she used to say – she loved that phrase. She only lived in a pub!”
Still, the contrast with the murdered woman – Sandra Rivett, their nanny – was painfully obvious. “The clash of worlds is truly striking,” Laura Thompson, who has written a book on the case, tells me. “If you believe that Lucan committed the crime, it looks like this posh oaf, entitled oaf, has tried to kill his wife and along the way has killed a servant, as if she were nothing.”
Did he commit the crime? If Lord Lucan genuinely believed, as he wrote in his letters that night, that his wife would accuse him of hiring a man to kill her, he was mistaken. She accused him directly. Sandra Rivett’s inquest jury declared Lord Lucan guilty of her murder, though he was not there to defend himself. That was his own fault – he had ­chosen to disappear rather than hand himself in – and it left the way clear for Lady Lucan to take full control of the story. Lucan was the last person to be declared a murderer by an inquest jury – the procedure was outlawed in 1977.
The evidence presented was restricted by the coroner, who rejected most cross-examination of Lady Lucan as the principal witness.
It is certainly believable that Lord Lucan wanted to murder his wife: he had just lost the custody battle for his beloved children, was on the verge of bankruptcy following a ruinous career as a “professional gambler”, and had drunkenly told friends he wanted to kill her. But there are lots of questions about the timings of the attacks, confusing patterns of blood at the scene, alleged errors in the police investigation, and more. 
Some have ­wondered whether it was really possible, even in the dark, for Lord Lucan to have mistaken their nanny for his wife of over a decade during a prolonged face-to-face attack. A hitman could have made such a mistake, but is it likely that anyone other than Lord Lucan would have hired one? Did the police fully investigate Sandra ­Rivett’s boyfriends, or other men linked to Lady Lucan? 
Lady Lucan had a history of mental-health issues and erratic behaviour: while people with a mental illness are much more likely to be the victim of violent crime rather than the per­petrator, this has led some to question her story. During the inquest, the question was raised of whether she could have inflicted the injuries on herself. (It was judged possible, but unlikely.)
Even more questions were provoked by Lord Lucan’s disappearance. That borrowed car abandoned at Newhaven made it look like he might have taken a cross-Channel ferry – but police thought it may have been left there deliberately as a red herring. Just after Lord Lucan disappeared, a group of his friends had a lunch meeting to discuss what to do. The police suspected some of them were concealing information. Among Lord Lucan’s set were some very wealthy and well-connected people with access to private jets and large estates abroad. In the 1970s, before we all had digital footprints, it was a lot easier than it is now to disappear and start a new life.
Despite constant publicity, despite police divers searching the English Channel and despite extensive police and journalistic investigations, Lord Lucan’s whereabouts remained a mystery. Several of his friends and family believed he was still alive years later, including his brother and Lady Lucan. In 1999, he was declared dead, though a death certificate was not granted until 2016. He would be nearly 90 years old now. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that somewhere in the world he is still alive. Lady Lucan took her own life in 2017.
Perhaps we will never know what really happened in that house in Belgravia, or what really happened to Lord Lucan. If he did come back to Britain, he would have to face a criminal trial. The case of Sandra Rivett’s murder remains open. Unless new and ­conclusive evidence emerges, the Lucan obsession may never fully be laid to rest.
The History Podcast: The Lucan Obsession starts on Radio 4 on Monday at 1.45pm