Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934; disappeared 8 November 1974), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer who disappeared after being suspected of murder. He was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, the eldest son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan by his mother Kaitlin Dawson. He was an evacuee during the Second World War but returned to attend Eton College, and served with the Coldstream Guards in West Germany from 1953 to 1955. He developed a taste for gambling and became skilled at backgammon and bridge, and he was an early member of the Clermont Club. His losses often exceeded his winnings, yet he left his job at a London-based merchant bank and became a professional gambler. He was known as Lord Bingham from April 1949 until January 1964, during his father's lifetime.
Lucan was considered for the role of James Bond in the cinematic adaptations of Ian Fleming's novels. He was known for his expensive tastes; he raced power boats and drove an Aston Martin. In 1963, he married Veronica Duncan, with whom he had three children. The marriage collapsed late in 1972, and he moved out of the family home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street in London's Belgravia to a property nearby. A bitter custody battle ensued which Lucan lost, and he began to spy on his wife and record their telephone conversations, apparently obsessed with regaining custody of the children. This fixation and his gambling losses had a dramatic effect on his life and personal finances.
On the evening of 7 November 1974, the children's nanny Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the Lucan family home. Lady Lucan was also attacked; she later identified Lucan as her assailant. As the police began their homicide investigation, Lucan telephoned his mother, asking her to collect the children, and then drove a borrowed Ford Corsair to a friend's house in Uckfield, East Sussex. Hours later, he left the property and disappeared. The car was found abandoned in Newhaven, its interior stained with blood and its boot containing a piece of bandaged lead pipe similar to one found at the crime scene. The police issued a warrant for Lucan's arrest a few days later, and the inquest into Rivett's death named him as her murderer.
There has been continuing interest in Lucan's fate, and hundreds of alleged sightings have been reported in various countries around the world, none of which has been substantiated. Lucan has not been found, despite a police investigation and widespread press coverage. He was presumed dead in chambers on 11 December 1992[1] and declared legally dead in October 1999.[2] A death certificate was issued in 2016.
Early life and education
Richard John Bingham was born on 18 December 1934 at 19 Bentinck Street, Marylebone, London, the second child and elder son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, an Anglo-Irish peer, and his wife Kaitlin Elizabeth Anne Dawson. A blood clot found in his mother's lung forced her to remain in a nursing home, so John, as he became known, was initially cared for by the family's nurserymaid. Aged three years, he attended a pre-prep school in Tite Street with his elder sister Jane, but in 1939, with war approaching, the two were taken to the relative safety of Wales. The following year, joined by their younger siblings Sally and Hugh, the Lucan children travelled to Toronto, moving shortly thereafter to Mount Kisco, New York. They stayed for five years with multi-millionairess Marcia Brady Tucker. John was enrolled at The Harvey School and spent summer holidays away from his siblings at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains.[3][4]
While in the United States, John and his siblings lived in grandeur and wanted for nothing, but on their return to England in February 1945 they were faced with the stark realities of wartime Britain. Rationing was still in force, their former home at Cheyne Walk had been bombed, and the house at 22 Eaton Square had had its windows blown out. Despite the family's noble ancestry,[nb 1] the 6th Earl and his wife were agnostics and socialists and preferred a more austere existence than that offered by Tucker, an extremely wealthy Christian. For a time, John suffered nightmares and was taken to a psychotherapist. As an adult he remained an agnostic, but ensured that his children attended Sunday school, preferring to give them a traditional childhood.[4][6]
At Eton College,[7] John developed a taste for gambling. He supplemented his pocket money with income from bookmaking, placing his earnings into a "secret" bank account, and regularly left the school's grounds to attend horse races. According to his mother his academic record was "far from creditable",[8] but he became Captain of Roe's House, before leaving in 1953 to undertake his National Service. He became a second lieutenant in his father's regiment, the Coldstream Guards, and was stationed mainly in Krefeld, West Germany. While there, he also became a keen poker player.[4][9]
Career
On leaving the army in 1954, Lucan joined a London-based merchant bank, William Brandt's Sons and Co., on an annual salary of £500.[4] In 1960 he met Stephen Raphael, a rich stockbroker who was a skilled backgammon player.[nb 2] They holidayed together in the Bahamas, went water-skiing, and played golf, backgammon and poker.[10] Lucan became a regular gambler and an early member of John Aspinall's Clermont gaming club, located in Berkeley Square. He often won at games of skill like bridge and backgammon, but he also accumulated huge losses. On one occasion he lost £8,000, or about two-thirds of the money he received annually from various family trusts. On another disastrous night at a casino he lost £10,000. That time his stockbroker uncle by marriage, John Bevan, helped him to pay the debt, and Lucan repaid his uncle two years later.[11]
Lucan left Brandt's in about 1960, shortly after he had won £26,000 playing chemin de fer.[4][12] A colleague had been promoted before him, and he protested and then gave up his job, saying "why should I work in a bank, when I can earn a year's money in one single night at the tables?".[13] He travelled to the US, where he played golf, raced powerboats, and drove his Aston Martin around the West Coast. He also visited his elder sister Jane, and his former guardian, Marcia Tucker. On his return to England he moved out of his parents' home in St John's Wood and into a flat in Park Crescent.[14]
Personal life
Marriage
Lucan met his future wife, Veronica Duncan, early in 1963.[15] She was born in 1937 to Major Charles Moorhouse Duncan and his wife, Thelma. Her father had died in a car accident when she was young, after which the family moved to South Africa. Her mother remarried, and her family returned to England where her new step-father became manager of a hotel in Guildford. With her sister, Christina, she was educated at St Swithun's School, Winchester. After displaying a talent for art she went on to study at an art college in Bournemouth. The two sisters later shared a flat in London, where Veronica worked as a model and later as a secretary. Christina's marriage to the wealthy William Shand Kydd (half-brother to Peter Shand Kydd, stepfather to Diana Spencer, later Princess of Wales) introduced her to London high society, and it was at a golf-club function in the country that Veronica and Lucan first met.[16]
News of their engagement appeared in The Times and The Daily Telegraph newspapers on 14 October 1963,[17] and the two were married at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, on 20 November. After a ceremony attended by Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (one of whose ladies-in-waiting had been a relative of Lady Lucan), but by few other prominent members of high society,[18] the couple honeymooned in Europe, travelling first class on the Orient Express. Lucan's already embattled finances were given a welcome boost by his father, who provided him with a marriage settlement designed to finance a larger family home and any future additions to the Lucan family. Lucan repaid some of his creditors and purchased 46 Lower Belgrave Street, Belgravia, redecorating it to suit Veronica's tastes.[19] Two months after the wedding, on 21 January 1964, the 6th Earl of Lucan died of a stroke.[20] In addition to a reputed £250,000 inheritance,[nb 3] Lucan acquired his father's titles: Earl of Lucan; Baron Lucan of Castlebar; Baron Lucan of Melcombe Lucan and Baronet Bingham of Castlebar.[22] His wife became the Countess of Lucan. Their first child, Frances, was born on 24 October 1964, and early the next year they employed a nanny, Lillian Jenkins, to look after her. Lucan tried to teach Veronica about gambling and traditional pursuits like hunting, shooting, and fishing. He bought her golf lessons; she later gave up the sport.[23]
Lucan's daily routine consisted of breakfast at 9:00 am, coffee, dealing with the morning's letters, reading the newspapers, and playing the piano. He sometimes jogged in the park and took his Doberman Pinscher for walks. Lunch at the Clermont Club was followed by afternoon games of backgammon. Returning home to change into evening dress, the earl typically spent the remainder of the day at the Clermont, gambling into the early hours, watched sometimes by Veronica.[24] In 1956, while still working at Brandt's, he had written of his desire to have "£2m in the bank", claiming that "motor-cars, yachts, expensive holidays, and security for the future would give myself and a lot of other people a lot of pleasure".[25] He was described by his friends as a shy and taciturn man, but with his tall stature, "luxuriant guardsman's moustache," and masculine pursuits, his exploits made him popular.[4] His profligacy extended to hiring private aircraft to take his friends to the races, asking a car dealer he knew to source an Aston Martin drophead coupé, drinking expensive Russian vodka and racing powerboats.[26] In September 1966 he unsuccessfully screen tested for a part in Woman Times Seven, prompting him to decline a later offer from film producer Albert R. Broccoli to screen test him for the role of James Bond.[27]
As a professional gambler[14] he was a skilled player, once rated amongst the world's top ten backgammon competitors. He won the St James's Club tournament and was Champion of the West Coast of America. He gained the moniker "Lucky" Lucan, but his losses easily outweighed his winnings, and in reality he was anything but lucky.[28] He had interests in thoroughbred horses; in 1968 he paid more in race entry fees than he received in winnings.[23] Despite some arguments over money, his wife remained largely ignorant of his losses, retaining the use of accounts at Savile Row tailors and various Knightsbridge shops.[29] Following the births of George (1967) and Camilla (1970), she suffered post-natal depression. Lucan became increasingly involved in her mental well-being, and in 1971 took her for treatment at a psychiatric clinic in Hampstead, where she refused to be admitted.[30] Instead, she agreed to home visits from a psychiatrist and a course of anti-depressants. In July 1972 the family holidayed in Monte Carlo, but Veronica quickly returned to England, leaving Lucan with their two elder children.[31][32] The combined pressures of maintaining their finances, paying for Lucan's gambling addiction, and Veronica's weakened mental condition took their toll on the marriage; two weeks after a strained family Christmas in 1972, Lucan moved into a small property in Eaton Row.[33]
Separation
Some months later Lucan moved again, to a larger rented flat in nearby Elizabeth Street. Despite an early attempt by his wife at reconciliation, by that point all Lucan wanted from the marriage was custody of his children. In an effort to demonstrate that Veronica was unfit to look after them, he began to spy on his family (his car was regularly seen parked in Lower Belgrave Street), later employing private investigators to perform the same task. Lucan also canvassed doctors, who explained that his wife had not "gone mad", but was suffering from depression and anxiety.[34] Lucan told his friends that nobody would work for Veronica (she sacked the children's long-term nanny, Lillian Jenkins, in December 1972).[35] Of the series of nannies employed in the house, one, 26-year-old Stefanja Sawicka, was told by Veronica that Lucan had hit her with a cane and had, on one occasion, pushed her down the stairs. The countess apparently feared for her safety and told Sawicka not to be surprised "if he kills me one day."[36]
Sawicka's time at the Lucan household ended late in March 1973. While with two of the children near Grosvenor Place, she was confronted by Lucan and two private detectives. They told her that the children had been made wards of court and that she must release them into his custody, which she did. Frances was collected from school later in the day.[36][37] Lady Lucan applied to the court to have the children returned, but concerned about the case's complexity, the judge set a date for the hearing three months ahead, for June 1973. To defend herself against Lucan's claims about her mental state, Veronica booked herself a four-day stay at the Priory Clinic in Roehampton. While it was acknowledged that she still required some psychiatric support, the doctors reported that there was no indication that she was mentally ill. Lucan's case depended upon Veronica being unable to care for the children, but at the hearing, he was instead forced to defend his own behaviour toward her. After several weeks of witnesses and protracted arguments in camera, on the advice of his lawyers he conceded the case. Unimpressed by Lucan's character, Mr Justice Rees awarded custody to Veronica. The earl was allowed access every other weekend.[38][39][40]
Thus began a bitter dispute between the two, involving many of their friends and Veronica's own sister.[41] Lucan again began to watch his wife's movements. He recorded some of their telephone conversations with a small Sony tape recorder and played excerpts to any friends prepared to listen; he also told them—and his bank manager—that Lady Lucan had been "spending money like water".[42] He continued to pay her £40 a week and may have cancelled their regular food order with Harrods.[43] He delayed payment to the milkman and—knowing that Veronica was required by the court to employ a live-in nanny—the childcare agency. With no income of her own, Veronica took a part-time job in a local hospital.[44] A temporary nanny, Elizabeth Murphy, was befriended by Lucan, who bought her drinks and asked her for information on his wife. He instructed his detective agency to investigate Murphy, looking for evidence that she was failing in her duty of care to his children. This they found; he dispensed with the detective agency's services when they presented him with bills amounting to several hundred pounds. Murphy was later hospitalised with cancer. Another temporary nanny, Christabel Martin, reported strange telephone calls to the house, some with heavy breathing and some from a man asking for non-existent people. Following a series of temporary nannies, Sandra Rivett started work in late 1974.[45]
Gambling
Losing the court case proved devastating for Lucan. It had cost him an estimated £20,000, and by late 1974 his financial position was dire. As he drank more heavily and started chain-smoking, his friends began to worry.[46] In drunken conversations with some of them, including Aspinall's mother, Lady Osborne, and her son, Lucan discussed murdering his wife. Greville Howard later gave a statement to the police describing how Lucan had talked of how killing his wife might save him from bankruptcy, how her body might be disposed of in the Solent and how he "would never be caught".[47][48][49][nb 4] Lucan borrowed £4,000 from his mother and asked Marcia Tucker for a loan of £100,000. Having no luck there, he wrote to Tucker's son, explaining how he wished to "buy" his children from Veronica; the money was not forthcoming. He turned to his friends and acquaintances, asking anyone plausible to loan him money to fund his gambling addiction. The financier James Goldsmith guaranteed a £5,000 overdraft for him, which for years remained unpaid. Lucan also applied to the discreet Edgware Trust. On request, he supplied details of his income, which was apparently around £12,000 a year from various family trusts. He was required to provide a surety and received only £3,000 of the £5,000 he asked for. Much to their managers' consternation, his four bank accounts were overdrawn; Coutts, £2,841; Lloyds, £4,379; National Westminster, £1,290; Midland, £5,667. Even though by then he was playing for much lower stakes than had previously been the case, Lucan's gambling remained completely out of control.[50] Ranson (1994) estimates that between September and October 1974 alone, the earl ran up debts of around £50,000.[51] Taki Theodoracopulos, who recalled Lucan as a close friend for more than a decade, lent him £3,000 in cash three nights before the murder.[52]
Despite these problems, from late October 1974 his demeanour appeared to change for the better. His best man, John Wilbraham, remarked that Lucan's apparent obsession over regaining his children had diminished. While having dinner with his mother he cast aside talk of his family problems and turned instead to politics. On 6 November he met his uncle John Bevan, apparently in good spirits.[53] Later that day he met 21-year-old Charlotte Andrina Colquhoun,[54] who said that "he seemed very happy, just his usual self, and there was nothing to suggest that he was worried or depressed".[55] He also dined at the Clermont with racing driver Graham Hill.[56] At the time, casinos could open only between 2:00 pm and 4:00 am, so Lucan often gambled into the early hours of the morning. He took tablets to deal with his insomnia and therefore usually awoke around lunchtime. On 7 November though, he broke routine and called his solicitor early that morning, and at 10:30 am took a call from Colquhoun. They arranged to eat at the Clermont at about 3:00 pm, but Lucan failed to appear. Colquhoun drove past the Clermont and Ladbroke clubs, and past Elizabeth Street, but could not find his car anywhere. Lucan also failed to arrive for his 1:00 pm lunch appointment with artist Dominic Elwes and banker Daniel Meinertzhagen, again at the Clermont.[57]
At 4:00 pm Lucan called at a chemist's on Lower Belgrave Street, close to Veronica's home, and asked the pharmacist there to identify a small capsule. It turned out to be Limbitrol 5, a drug for the treatment of anxiety and depression. Lucan had apparently made several similar visits since he separated from his wife; he never told the pharmacist where he got the drugs. At 4:45 pm he called a friend, literary agent Michael Hicks-Beach, and between 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm met with him at his flat on Elizabeth Street. Lucan wanted his help with an article on gambling he had been asked to write for an Oxford University magazine. He drove Hicks-Beach home at about 8:00 pm, not in his Mercedes-Benz, but in "an old, dark, and scruffy Ford", possibly the Ford Corsair he borrowed from Michael Stoop several weeks earlier. At 8:30 pm he called the Clermont to check on a reservation for dinner with Greville Howard and friends. Howard had called him at 5:15 pm and asked if he wished to come to the theatre, but Lucan had declined and made the alternative suggestion to meet at the Clermont at 11:00 pm. He failed to arrive and did not answer his telephone when called.[58][59]
Murder
Sandra Rivett
Lucan was considered for the role of James Bond in the cinematic adaptations of Ian Fleming's novels. He was known for his expensive tastes; he raced power boats and drove an Aston Martin. In 1963, he married Veronica Duncan, with whom he had three children. The marriage collapsed late in 1972, and he moved out of the family home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street in London's Belgravia to a property nearby. A bitter custody battle ensued which Lucan lost, and he began to spy on his wife and record their telephone conversations, apparently obsessed with regaining custody of the children. This fixation and his gambling losses had a dramatic effect on his life and personal finances.
On the evening of 7 November 1974, the children's nanny Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the Lucan family home. Lady Lucan was also attacked; she later identified Lucan as her assailant. As the police began their homicide investigation, Lucan telephoned his mother, asking her to collect the children, and then drove a borrowed Ford Corsair to a friend's house in Uckfield, East Sussex. Hours later, he left the property and disappeared. The car was found abandoned in Newhaven, its interior stained with blood and its boot containing a piece of bandaged lead pipe similar to one found at the crime scene. The police issued a warrant for Lucan's arrest a few days later, and the inquest into Rivett's death named him as her murderer.
There has been continuing interest in Lucan's fate, and hundreds of alleged sightings have been reported in various countries around the world, none of which has been substantiated. Lucan has not been found, despite a police investigation and widespread press coverage. He was presumed dead in chambers on 11 December 1992[1] and declared legally dead in October 1999.[2] A death certificate was issued in 2016.
Early life and education
Richard John Bingham was born on 18 December 1934 at 19 Bentinck Street, Marylebone, London, the second child and elder son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, an Anglo-Irish peer, and his wife Kaitlin Elizabeth Anne Dawson. A blood clot found in his mother's lung forced her to remain in a nursing home, so John, as he became known, was initially cared for by the family's nurserymaid. Aged three years, he attended a pre-prep school in Tite Street with his elder sister Jane, but in 1939, with war approaching, the two were taken to the relative safety of Wales. The following year, joined by their younger siblings Sally and Hugh, the Lucan children travelled to Toronto, moving shortly thereafter to Mount Kisco, New York. They stayed for five years with multi-millionairess Marcia Brady Tucker. John was enrolled at The Harvey School and spent summer holidays away from his siblings at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains.[3][4]
While in the United States, John and his siblings lived in grandeur and wanted for nothing, but on their return to England in February 1945 they were faced with the stark realities of wartime Britain. Rationing was still in force, their former home at Cheyne Walk had been bombed, and the house at 22 Eaton Square had had its windows blown out. Despite the family's noble ancestry,[nb 1] the 6th Earl and his wife were agnostics and socialists and preferred a more austere existence than that offered by Tucker, an extremely wealthy Christian. For a time, John suffered nightmares and was taken to a psychotherapist. As an adult he remained an agnostic, but ensured that his children attended Sunday school, preferring to give them a traditional childhood.[4][6]
At Eton College,[7] John developed a taste for gambling. He supplemented his pocket money with income from bookmaking, placing his earnings into a "secret" bank account, and regularly left the school's grounds to attend horse races. According to his mother his academic record was "far from creditable",[8] but he became Captain of Roe's House, before leaving in 1953 to undertake his National Service. He became a second lieutenant in his father's regiment, the Coldstream Guards, and was stationed mainly in Krefeld, West Germany. While there, he also became a keen poker player.[4][9]
Career
On leaving the army in 1954, Lucan joined a London-based merchant bank, William Brandt's Sons and Co., on an annual salary of £500.[4] In 1960 he met Stephen Raphael, a rich stockbroker who was a skilled backgammon player.[nb 2] They holidayed together in the Bahamas, went water-skiing, and played golf, backgammon and poker.[10] Lucan became a regular gambler and an early member of John Aspinall's Clermont gaming club, located in Berkeley Square. He often won at games of skill like bridge and backgammon, but he also accumulated huge losses. On one occasion he lost £8,000, or about two-thirds of the money he received annually from various family trusts. On another disastrous night at a casino he lost £10,000. That time his stockbroker uncle by marriage, John Bevan, helped him to pay the debt, and Lucan repaid his uncle two years later.[11]
Lucan left Brandt's in about 1960, shortly after he had won £26,000 playing chemin de fer.[4][12] A colleague had been promoted before him, and he protested and then gave up his job, saying "why should I work in a bank, when I can earn a year's money in one single night at the tables?".[13] He travelled to the US, where he played golf, raced powerboats, and drove his Aston Martin around the West Coast. He also visited his elder sister Jane, and his former guardian, Marcia Tucker. On his return to England he moved out of his parents' home in St John's Wood and into a flat in Park Crescent.[14]
Personal life
Marriage
Lucan met his future wife, Veronica Duncan, early in 1963.[15] She was born in 1937 to Major Charles Moorhouse Duncan and his wife, Thelma. Her father had died in a car accident when she was young, after which the family moved to South Africa. Her mother remarried, and her family returned to England where her new step-father became manager of a hotel in Guildford. With her sister, Christina, she was educated at St Swithun's School, Winchester. After displaying a talent for art she went on to study at an art college in Bournemouth. The two sisters later shared a flat in London, where Veronica worked as a model and later as a secretary. Christina's marriage to the wealthy William Shand Kydd (half-brother to Peter Shand Kydd, stepfather to Diana Spencer, later Princess of Wales) introduced her to London high society, and it was at a golf-club function in the country that Veronica and Lucan first met.[16]
News of their engagement appeared in The Times and The Daily Telegraph newspapers on 14 October 1963,[17] and the two were married at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, on 20 November. After a ceremony attended by Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (one of whose ladies-in-waiting had been a relative of Lady Lucan), but by few other prominent members of high society,[18] the couple honeymooned in Europe, travelling first class on the Orient Express. Lucan's already embattled finances were given a welcome boost by his father, who provided him with a marriage settlement designed to finance a larger family home and any future additions to the Lucan family. Lucan repaid some of his creditors and purchased 46 Lower Belgrave Street, Belgravia, redecorating it to suit Veronica's tastes.[19] Two months after the wedding, on 21 January 1964, the 6th Earl of Lucan died of a stroke.[20] In addition to a reputed £250,000 inheritance,[nb 3] Lucan acquired his father's titles: Earl of Lucan; Baron Lucan of Castlebar; Baron Lucan of Melcombe Lucan and Baronet Bingham of Castlebar.[22] His wife became the Countess of Lucan. Their first child, Frances, was born on 24 October 1964, and early the next year they employed a nanny, Lillian Jenkins, to look after her. Lucan tried to teach Veronica about gambling and traditional pursuits like hunting, shooting, and fishing. He bought her golf lessons; she later gave up the sport.[23]
Lucan's daily routine consisted of breakfast at 9:00 am, coffee, dealing with the morning's letters, reading the newspapers, and playing the piano. He sometimes jogged in the park and took his Doberman Pinscher for walks. Lunch at the Clermont Club was followed by afternoon games of backgammon. Returning home to change into evening dress, the earl typically spent the remainder of the day at the Clermont, gambling into the early hours, watched sometimes by Veronica.[24] In 1956, while still working at Brandt's, he had written of his desire to have "£2m in the bank", claiming that "motor-cars, yachts, expensive holidays, and security for the future would give myself and a lot of other people a lot of pleasure".[25] He was described by his friends as a shy and taciturn man, but with his tall stature, "luxuriant guardsman's moustache," and masculine pursuits, his exploits made him popular.[4] His profligacy extended to hiring private aircraft to take his friends to the races, asking a car dealer he knew to source an Aston Martin drophead coupé, drinking expensive Russian vodka and racing powerboats.[26] In September 1966 he unsuccessfully screen tested for a part in Woman Times Seven, prompting him to decline a later offer from film producer Albert R. Broccoli to screen test him for the role of James Bond.[27]
As a professional gambler[14] he was a skilled player, once rated amongst the world's top ten backgammon competitors. He won the St James's Club tournament and was Champion of the West Coast of America. He gained the moniker "Lucky" Lucan, but his losses easily outweighed his winnings, and in reality he was anything but lucky.[28] He had interests in thoroughbred horses; in 1968 he paid more in race entry fees than he received in winnings.[23] Despite some arguments over money, his wife remained largely ignorant of his losses, retaining the use of accounts at Savile Row tailors and various Knightsbridge shops.[29] Following the births of George (1967) and Camilla (1970), she suffered post-natal depression. Lucan became increasingly involved in her mental well-being, and in 1971 took her for treatment at a psychiatric clinic in Hampstead, where she refused to be admitted.[30] Instead, she agreed to home visits from a psychiatrist and a course of anti-depressants. In July 1972 the family holidayed in Monte Carlo, but Veronica quickly returned to England, leaving Lucan with their two elder children.[31][32] The combined pressures of maintaining their finances, paying for Lucan's gambling addiction, and Veronica's weakened mental condition took their toll on the marriage; two weeks after a strained family Christmas in 1972, Lucan moved into a small property in Eaton Row.[33]
Separation
Some months later Lucan moved again, to a larger rented flat in nearby Elizabeth Street. Despite an early attempt by his wife at reconciliation, by that point all Lucan wanted from the marriage was custody of his children. In an effort to demonstrate that Veronica was unfit to look after them, he began to spy on his family (his car was regularly seen parked in Lower Belgrave Street), later employing private investigators to perform the same task. Lucan also canvassed doctors, who explained that his wife had not "gone mad", but was suffering from depression and anxiety.[34] Lucan told his friends that nobody would work for Veronica (she sacked the children's long-term nanny, Lillian Jenkins, in December 1972).[35] Of the series of nannies employed in the house, one, 26-year-old Stefanja Sawicka, was told by Veronica that Lucan had hit her with a cane and had, on one occasion, pushed her down the stairs. The countess apparently feared for her safety and told Sawicka not to be surprised "if he kills me one day."[36]
Sawicka's time at the Lucan household ended late in March 1973. While with two of the children near Grosvenor Place, she was confronted by Lucan and two private detectives. They told her that the children had been made wards of court and that she must release them into his custody, which she did. Frances was collected from school later in the day.[36][37] Lady Lucan applied to the court to have the children returned, but concerned about the case's complexity, the judge set a date for the hearing three months ahead, for June 1973. To defend herself against Lucan's claims about her mental state, Veronica booked herself a four-day stay at the Priory Clinic in Roehampton. While it was acknowledged that she still required some psychiatric support, the doctors reported that there was no indication that she was mentally ill. Lucan's case depended upon Veronica being unable to care for the children, but at the hearing, he was instead forced to defend his own behaviour toward her. After several weeks of witnesses and protracted arguments in camera, on the advice of his lawyers he conceded the case. Unimpressed by Lucan's character, Mr Justice Rees awarded custody to Veronica. The earl was allowed access every other weekend.[38][39][40]
Thus began a bitter dispute between the two, involving many of their friends and Veronica's own sister.[41] Lucan again began to watch his wife's movements. He recorded some of their telephone conversations with a small Sony tape recorder and played excerpts to any friends prepared to listen; he also told them—and his bank manager—that Lady Lucan had been "spending money like water".[42] He continued to pay her £40 a week and may have cancelled their regular food order with Harrods.[43] He delayed payment to the milkman and—knowing that Veronica was required by the court to employ a live-in nanny—the childcare agency. With no income of her own, Veronica took a part-time job in a local hospital.[44] A temporary nanny, Elizabeth Murphy, was befriended by Lucan, who bought her drinks and asked her for information on his wife. He instructed his detective agency to investigate Murphy, looking for evidence that she was failing in her duty of care to his children. This they found; he dispensed with the detective agency's services when they presented him with bills amounting to several hundred pounds. Murphy was later hospitalised with cancer. Another temporary nanny, Christabel Martin, reported strange telephone calls to the house, some with heavy breathing and some from a man asking for non-existent people. Following a series of temporary nannies, Sandra Rivett started work in late 1974.[45]
Gambling
Losing the court case proved devastating for Lucan. It had cost him an estimated £20,000, and by late 1974 his financial position was dire. As he drank more heavily and started chain-smoking, his friends began to worry.[46] In drunken conversations with some of them, including Aspinall's mother, Lady Osborne, and her son, Lucan discussed murdering his wife. Greville Howard later gave a statement to the police describing how Lucan had talked of how killing his wife might save him from bankruptcy, how her body might be disposed of in the Solent and how he "would never be caught".[47][48][49][nb 4] Lucan borrowed £4,000 from his mother and asked Marcia Tucker for a loan of £100,000. Having no luck there, he wrote to Tucker's son, explaining how he wished to "buy" his children from Veronica; the money was not forthcoming. He turned to his friends and acquaintances, asking anyone plausible to loan him money to fund his gambling addiction. The financier James Goldsmith guaranteed a £5,000 overdraft for him, which for years remained unpaid. Lucan also applied to the discreet Edgware Trust. On request, he supplied details of his income, which was apparently around £12,000 a year from various family trusts. He was required to provide a surety and received only £3,000 of the £5,000 he asked for. Much to their managers' consternation, his four bank accounts were overdrawn; Coutts, £2,841; Lloyds, £4,379; National Westminster, £1,290; Midland, £5,667. Even though by then he was playing for much lower stakes than had previously been the case, Lucan's gambling remained completely out of control.[50] Ranson (1994) estimates that between September and October 1974 alone, the earl ran up debts of around £50,000.[51] Taki Theodoracopulos, who recalled Lucan as a close friend for more than a decade, lent him £3,000 in cash three nights before the murder.[52]
Despite these problems, from late October 1974 his demeanour appeared to change for the better. His best man, John Wilbraham, remarked that Lucan's apparent obsession over regaining his children had diminished. While having dinner with his mother he cast aside talk of his family problems and turned instead to politics. On 6 November he met his uncle John Bevan, apparently in good spirits.[53] Later that day he met 21-year-old Charlotte Andrina Colquhoun,[54] who said that "he seemed very happy, just his usual self, and there was nothing to suggest that he was worried or depressed".[55] He also dined at the Clermont with racing driver Graham Hill.[56] At the time, casinos could open only between 2:00 pm and 4:00 am, so Lucan often gambled into the early hours of the morning. He took tablets to deal with his insomnia and therefore usually awoke around lunchtime. On 7 November though, he broke routine and called his solicitor early that morning, and at 10:30 am took a call from Colquhoun. They arranged to eat at the Clermont at about 3:00 pm, but Lucan failed to appear. Colquhoun drove past the Clermont and Ladbroke clubs, and past Elizabeth Street, but could not find his car anywhere. Lucan also failed to arrive for his 1:00 pm lunch appointment with artist Dominic Elwes and banker Daniel Meinertzhagen, again at the Clermont.[57]
At 4:00 pm Lucan called at a chemist's on Lower Belgrave Street, close to Veronica's home, and asked the pharmacist there to identify a small capsule. It turned out to be Limbitrol 5, a drug for the treatment of anxiety and depression. Lucan had apparently made several similar visits since he separated from his wife; he never told the pharmacist where he got the drugs. At 4:45 pm he called a friend, literary agent Michael Hicks-Beach, and between 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm met with him at his flat on Elizabeth Street. Lucan wanted his help with an article on gambling he had been asked to write for an Oxford University magazine. He drove Hicks-Beach home at about 8:00 pm, not in his Mercedes-Benz, but in "an old, dark, and scruffy Ford", possibly the Ford Corsair he borrowed from Michael Stoop several weeks earlier. At 8:30 pm he called the Clermont to check on a reservation for dinner with Greville Howard and friends. Howard had called him at 5:15 pm and asked if he wished to come to the theatre, but Lucan had declined and made the alternative suggestion to meet at the Clermont at 11:00 pm. He failed to arrive and did not answer his telephone when called.[58][59]
Murder
Sandra Rivett
Sandra Eleanor Rivett was born on 16 September 1945, the third child of Albert and Eunice Hensby. The family moved to Australia when she was two years old, but returned in 1955. Sandra was a popular child, described at school as "intelligent, although she does not excel academically".[60] She worked for six months as an apprentice hairdresser before taking a job as a secretary in Croydon. After a failed romance she became a voluntary patient at a mental hospital near Redhill, Surrey, where she was treated for depression. She became engaged to a builder named John and took a job as a children's nanny for a doctor in Croydon. On 13 March 1964, she gave birth to a boy named Stephen, but, as her relationship with John was failing, she returned home to live with her parents and considered giving the baby up for adoption. Her parents took on the responsibility and adopted him in May 1965. Sandra later worked at a home for the elderly, before moving to Portsmouth to stay with her older sister. While there she met Roger Rivett; the two married on 10 June 1967 in Croydon. Roger was serving as a Royal Navy able seaman and later worked as a loader for British Road Services, while Sandra worked part-time at Reedham Orphanage in Purley. In mid-1973 he took a job on an Esso tanker, returning to their flat in Kenley a few months later by which time Sandra was employed by a cigarette company in Croydon. Their marriage collapsed in May 1974 when, suspicious of Sandra's movements while he was away, Roger went to live with his parents. She was by then listed on the books of a Belgravia domestic agency and had been caring for an elderly couple in that district. A few weeks later she began to work for the Lucans.[61]
Sandra normally went out with her boyfriend, John Hankins, on Thursday nights, but had changed her night off and had seen him the previous day. The two last spoke on the telephone at about 8:00 pm on 7 November.[62][63] After putting the younger children to bed, at about 8:55 pm she asked Veronica if she would like a cup of tea, before heading downstairs to the basement kitchen to make one. As she entered the room, she was bludgeoned to death with a piece of bandaged lead pipe. Her killer then placed her body into a canvas mailbag. Meanwhile, wondering what had delayed her nanny, Lady Lucan descended from the first floor to see what had happened. She called to Rivett from the top of the basement stairs and was herself attacked. As she screamed for her life, her attacker told her to "shut up."[64] Lady Lucan later claimed at that moment to have recognised her husband's voice. The two apparently continued to fight; she bit his fingers, and when he threw her face down to the carpet, managed to turn around and squeeze his testicles, causing him to release his grip on her throat and give up the fight. When she asked where Rivett was, Lucan was at first evasive, but eventually admitted to having killed her. Terrified, Lady Lucan told him she could help him escape if only he would remain at the house for a few days, to allow her injuries to heal. Lucan walked upstairs and sent his daughter to bed, then went into one of the bedrooms. When Veronica entered, to lie on the bed, he told her to put towels down first to avoid staining the bedding. Lucan asked her if she had any barbiturates and went to the bathroom to get a wet towel, supposedly to clean Veronica's face. Lady Lucan realised her husband would be unable to hear her from the bathroom, and made her escape, running outside to a nearby public house, the Plumbers Arms.[65]
Lucan may have arrived at the Chester Square home of Madelaine Florman (mother of one of Frances's school friends) sometime between 10:00 pm and 10:30 pm. Alone in the house, Florman ignored the door, but shortly afterwards she received an incoherent telephone call and put the receiver down.[66] Blood stains, which after forensic examination were found to be a mixture of blood groups A and B, were later discovered on her doorstep. Lucan certainly called his mother between 10:30 pm and 11:00 pm and asked her to collect the children from Lower Belgrave Street. According to the Dowager Countess, he spoke of a "terrible catastrophe"[67] at his wife's home. He told her that he had been driving past the house when he saw Veronica fighting with a man, in the basement. He had entered the property and found his wife screaming.[68] The location from which he made this, and possibly the call to Florman, remains unknown. The police forced their way into Lady Lucan's home and discovered Sandra Rivett's body before his wife was taken by ambulance to St George's Hospital. Lucan drove the Ford Corsair 42 miles (68 km) to Uckfield, in East Sussex, to visit his friends, the Maxwell-Scotts. Susan Maxwell-Scott's meeting with Lucan was his last confirmed sighting.[69]
Investigation
By the time Detective Chief Superintendent Roy Ranson arrived at Lower Belgrave Street early on Friday 8 November, the divisional surgeon had pronounced Sandra Rivett dead and forensic officers and photographers had been called to the property. Other than the front door, which the first two officers on the scene had kicked in, there was no sign of a forced entry. A bloodstained towel was found in Veronica's first-floor bedroom. The area around the top of the basement staircase was heavily bloodstained. A bloodstained lead pipe lay on the floor. Pictures hanging from the staircase walls were askew and a metal banister rail was damaged. At the foot of the stairs, two cups and saucers lay in a pool of blood. Rivett's arm protruded from the canvas sack, which lay in a slowly expanding pool of blood. The light fitting at the bottom of the stairs was missing its bulb; one was noted nearby, on a chair. Blood was also found on various leaves in the adjoining rear garden.[70][71]
Officers also searched 5 Eaton Row, into which Lucan had moved early in 1973, and after interviewing his mother (who had called to take the children to her home in St John's Wood), his last address at 72a Elizabeth Street. Nothing untoward was found; on the bed, a suit and shirt lay alongside a book on Greek shipping millionaires, and Lucan's wallet, car keys, money, driving licence, handkerchief and spectacles were on a bedside table.[72] His passport was in a drawer and his blue Mercedes-Benz parked outside, its engine cold and its battery flat.[73][74] Ranson then visited Veronica Lucan at St George's Hospital. Although heavily sedated, she was able to describe what had happened to her. A police officer was left to guard her, should her assailant return. Rivett's body was taken to the mortuary, and a search was undertaken of all local basement areas and gardens, skips and open spaces.[75]
After removing her corpse from the canvas sack and beginning the post mortem examination, pathologist Keith Simpson told Ranson he was certain that Rivett had been killed before her body was placed in the sack, and that in his opinion the lead pipe found at the scene could be the murder weapon.[76] Her estranged husband, Roger, had an alibi for the night concerned, and was eliminated from police inquiries. Other male friends and boyfriends were questioned and discounted as suspects. Her parents confirmed that Sandra had a good working relationship with Lady Lucan, and was extremely fond of the children. Meanwhile, Lucan had yet to make an appearance, and so his description was circulated to police forces across the country. Newspapers and television stations were told only that Lucan was wanted by the police for questioning.[77]
Hours earlier, Lucan had again called his mother, at about 12:30 am. He told her that he would be in touch later that day, but declined to speak with the police constable who had accompanied her to her flat; instead, he said he would call the police later that morning.[78] Ranson discovered that Lucan had travelled to Uckfield when he was called by Ian Maxwell-Scott, who told him that Lucan had arrived at his home a few hours after the murder, and spoken with his wife, Susan. While there, the earl had written two letters to his brother-in-law, Bill Shand Kydd, and posted them to his London address. Maxwell-Scott also called Shand Kydd at his country house near Leighton Buzzard and told him about the letters, prompting the latter to immediately drive to London to collect them.[79] After reading them, and noting that they were bloodstained, he took them to Ranson
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