Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan

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Lord Lucan
Born	Richard John Bingham 1934-12-18
Died	Possibly deceased some time after 1974-11-08
Nationality	British
Education	Eton College
Occupation	Coldstream Guards officer
Title	Lord Lucan, 7th Earl of Lucan
Known for	Murder of Sandra Rivett
Spouse	Lady Lucan (née Veronica Mary Duncan)
Children	Three
Parents	George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, Kaitilin Elizabeth Anne (née Dawson)

Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934), known as Lord Bingham from 1949 to 1964 and colloquially known as "Lucky" Lucan^[1], was or is a missing British aristocrat who disappeared on 8 November 1974 after his children's nanny Sandra Rivett was found murdered. Lucan's current whereabouts are unknown, and many, including his wife, presume him to be dead.

Contents 1 Early life 2 The mystery 3 Possible motives 4 Reported sightings 4.1 Johannesburg Jeff 4.2 John Aspinall 4.3 Barry Halpin 4.4 New Zealand 5 Probate 6 Legacy 7 References 8 Footnotes 9 Non-fiction 10 Fiction 11 See also 12 External links

[edit] Early life

The eldest son of Patrick Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, and Kaitilin Elizabeth Anne (née Dawson),^[2] Lord Lucan was educated at Eton College.^{[3] [4]} He went on to serve in the Coldstream Guards. He had two sisters and one brother.^[2] His father died in 1964 and he inherited the earldom when he was 29 years old.^[2] Lord Lucan's mother died in 1985.^[2]

[edit] The mystery

The 7th Earl of Lucan's whereabouts have been unknown since November 8, 1974, when his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was found murdered at his estranged wife's home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, London. Lady Lucan, the former Veronica Mary Duncan, who was also attacked that night, said her husband confessed to her that he had murdered Rivett by mistake.^{[citation needed]}

Lord Lucan claimed to a family friend that he had been walking past the house, had seen someone struggling with Lady Lucan, and had entered the house to assist her. Lord Lucan claimed that he calmed her down but that Lady Lucan lay low for a while and left the house while he was in the bathroom getting a cloth to clean up her face. He claimed he heard her shouting "Murder, murder!" in the street as she ran to the Plumber's Arms. Lord Lucan panicked, according to Mrs Susan Maxwell-Scott, and left. A car Lord Lucan was borrowing at the time was found abandoned, containing some blood of two types, in Newhaven, East Sussex. ^[5]

A coroner's jury brought in a verdict of unlawful killing on Rivett, naming Lord Lucan as the murderer, in June 1975.^[6] Rivett's death certificate reads: "Cause of death: Blunt head injuries inflicted by a named person. Murder".^{[citation needed]} This was the last time before the introduction of the Criminal Law Act 1977 that an inquest jury was allowed to name a murderer.^[6]

[edit] Possible motives

At the time of the murder, Lady Lucan had custody of their three children. Lord Lucan considered his wife mentally unstable and believed he should have custody of the children, but British courts seldom granted custody of children away from their mother.^{[citation needed]} (In 1982, Lady Lucan received an affidavit, sent through the post, in which her 15-year-old son declared he would find it "much more congenial to live as part of the family of his aunt and uncle".)^[6]

Another motive, offered by a friend, Greville Howard, to the police, is that Lucan, wishing to solve his financial problems and avoid bankruptcy, had considered killing Lady Lucan and dropping her body in the Solent.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Reported sightings

Since his disappearance, many alleged sightings of Lucan have been reported from all over the world, but police have drawn a blank in their efforts to find the runaway earl.^[7][8]

In a curious coincidence, in December 1974, police in Australia arrested a man they believed was Lucan but who was the British MP John Stonehouse, who had faked his suicide a month earlier.

[edit] Johannesburg Jeff

During the 1990s Lucan was popularly sighted around South Africa. In 2007, the Daily Mail suggested this was a mistaken identity of a man nicknamed Johannesburg Jeff.

[edit] John Aspinall

In one of the more bizarre claims, an affidavit in the possession of the tabloid Daily Mirror records the account of a Bedfordshire woman, formerly employed by Lord Lucan's friend John Aspinall, who claims that the fugitive Lord Lucan was sheltered by Aspinall at his zoo, which resulted in Lord Lucan being mauled to death by a tiger and his corpse hurriedly disposed of.^{[citation needed]}

In 2000, Aspinall gave an interview in which he said that in his opinion, Lord Lucan had committed suicide by scuttling the powerboat that he kept at Newhaven. Aspinall said he had no doubt that Lord Lucan had killed the nanny, but that it was a mistake; Lord Lucan, Aspinall said, had intended to kill his wife and had killed himself out of shame.^[9]

[edit] Barry Halpin

In September 2003, a book titled Dead Lucky: Lord Lucan, The Final Truth,^[10] written by Duncan MacLaughlin, a former Scotland Yard detective, claimed to have solved the mystery of Lucan's disappearance.^[7] The author claimed that Lucan fled to Goa, India, arriving there a year after Rivett's death. The book includes photos taken there in 1991 of a man who bears a resemblance to Lucan. The man, who died in 1996, was known in Goa as Barry Halpin (or, according to the book, "Jungle Barry").

However, these claims were almost immediately dismissed. BBC Radio 2 presenter Mike Harding said in a letter to The Guardian newspaper that he knew Barry Halpin from his days as a folk musician in Liverpool in the 1960s, and that he had gone to India "as it was more spiritual than St. Helens".^[7]

Given the extremely rapid debunking of the claims, The Sunday Telegraph, which serialised part of the book, was embarrassed in a manner reminiscent of The Sunday Times' publication of the bogus Hitler Diaries. The book was reprinted a year later in paperback entitled The Lucan Conspiracy^[11] (to much less press interest) with one additional final chapter, and displaying the tagline: How the Establishment Conned the World into Believing Lord Lucan Was Barry Halpin.

[edit] New Zealand

In August 2007, the Auckland-based New Zealand Herald reported that former Scotland Yard detective Sidney Ball was following up claims that Lord Lucan was living in an old Land Rover outside the township of Marton, apparently with a pet possum, cat and a goat (named Camilla). Mr Ball says neighbours of the man, Roger Woodgate, were convinced he was Lord Lucan but that he couldn't discuss the case further until his investigation was complete. The man is said to have an upper-class English accent and might be receiving income from property interests in the UK. He has denied being Lord Lucan, claiming he had been a photographer working for the Ministry of Defence who left the UK five months before Lord Lucan vanished. Mr Woodgate also claims to be 10 years younger than Lord Lucan, and five inches shorter.^[8]

[edit] Probate

The 7th Earl of Lucan was presumed deceased in 1992,^[12] but no death certificate has been issued, so his earldom cannot yet be inherited by his son, George Bingham, Lord Bingham.The trustees of the 7th Earl of Lucan's Settled Estates in 1992 were granted an order known as "the 1992 Order" which enabled them to administer the 7th Earl's estate on the footing that the 7th Earl was dead and were further granted leave to apply to the Family Division to swear death. This enabled Lord Bingham to become the beneficiary of the Lucan Settled Estates. There is nothing to prevent Lord Bingham from styling himself the 8th Earl of Lucan although he cannot take his seat in the House of Lords. In August 1998, Lord Lucan's son (Lord Bingham) gave an interview to a national newspaper in which he said that five years ago he had obtained an order from a Chancery Court which does everything in law that can be done to treat a man as dead - so from that moment forward, given no disputed claim, he had succeeded to the title and also said that it was his intention to use it. He further stated that the Metropolitan Police had given a statement which testified to their belief that the 7th Earl is not alive and that none of the sightings in the past 24 years has been given any credence. The High Court of Justice granted probate on his free estate in 1999. The net value remaining amounted to less than £15,000.^[12]

The Countess of Lucan (Lady Lucan) believes her husband to be dead, and sometimes uses the prefix 'dowager' to indicate this.

[edit] Legacy

The phrase "doing a Lord Lucan" now means to disappear or go missing. The phrase is generally applied in a humorous context. This is similar to the phrase "pulling a Crater" which arose from the similarly mysterious vanishing of Judge Crater in New York.

The Countess of Lucan established a website to detail her side of the story.^[13]

A film called Bloodlines: Legacy of a Lord^[14] was made about his life and his disappearance. It is set in 1997 and follows the story of a journalist searching for information about Lucan. Most of the film is told in flashback.

In an episode of "The New Statesman", Alan B'Stard (Rik Mayall) successfully brings hanging back to the country. An old friend of B'Stard's - a hangman wants his job returned, but B'Stard denies it, stating he's far too old and out of practice considering the last hanging was in 1964. The hangman then replies: "Oh but it wasn't in 1964, it was 1974 - Lord Lucan"

The Conservative Party leader David Cameron referred to him in a speech. "You are just about as likely," he said, "to find an NHS dentist in Milton Keynes as you are Lord Lucan riding on Shergar"^[15], a joke originally made by Christy Moore in his song "Lisdoonvarna." ^[16] A similar joke was used in the BBC comedy series Dead Ringers, where Queen Elizabeth II was depicted claiming that she did not know the secrets to multiple unsolved mysteries while revealing she had been in touch with Lucan, could back an alibi for Lee Harvey Oswald and was in possession of Shergar.

Ian Botham used the phrase "disappeared like Lord Lucan" in respect to England's wicket keeper Chris Read, who made very few appearances in the first part of the 2006-07 Ashes series.

Satirical puppet show Spitting Image often had Lord Lucan appearing in the background as a waiter, bartender etc. In one sketch he appeared on "Question Time" being asked by the audience if he can give any clues as to his current location.

[edit] References

• Official Website of the Countess of Lucan - Setting the Record Straight. Retrieved on 2007-12-06.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Non-fiction

• Lord Lucan: The Final Verdict by Roy Ranson
• Lucan, Not Guilty by Sally Moore
• Lord Lucan: What Really Happened by James Ruddick
• Dead Lucky by Duncan MacLaughlin
• The Lucan Mystery by Norman Lucas
• Troops of Midian by Richard Wilmott
• Trail of Havoc by Patrick Marnham

[edit] Fiction

• Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark, ISBN 0-14-100990-X
• Get Lucky by Dickon Whitfield ISBN 0-7522-0745-8
• Maxwell Lives by Jim Paterson ISBN 0-9530953-0-4
• Nobody's Fault by Nancy Holmes ISBN 0-553-05732-4
• The Butterfly Man by Heather Rose ISBN 0-7022-3535-0
• "The Day Lucky's Luck Ran Out" by Allan Prior, in London After Midnight, edited by Peter Haining ISBN 0-7607-0345-0
• "The Lucky Lord"

[edit] See also

• List of people who have disappeared
• Declared legally dead

[edit] External links

• The Lucan Review
• Jungly Barry website
• 1975: Missing earl guilty of murder — BBC News On This Day, 19 June 2006
• Lady Lucan's website
• Channel 4 links for Lucan

Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by George Bingham	Earl of Lucan 1964–?	Succeeded by Status of title uncertain