A Story Of Murder, Gambling Debts, And British Aristocracy. The Disappearance Of Lord Lucan
On a dark November evening in 1974, the quiet affluence of London’s Belgravia neighbourhood was shattered by a scene of horror that would capture the public’s imagination for decades. Lady Veronica Lucan burst through the doors of the Plumbers Arms pub, her face and clothes streaked with blood, and cried out for help.
“Help me! Help me! I’ve just escaped from being murdered . . . he’s murdered the nanny.”
Moments earlier, back at her townhouse on Lower Belgrave Street, her estranged husband, Lord Lucan, allegedly attacked her after bludgeoning Sandra Rivett, the family’s 29-year-old nanny, to death in the basement. Police would later allege that Lucan, intending to kill his wife, mistakenly attacked Rivett as she completed her nightly chores. When Lady Lucan descended the stairs, she found herself face to face with a blood-covered Lucan, who reportedly struck her, injuring her before she managed to break free and flee to the nearby pub. The events of that night set off one of Britain’s most infamous manhunts and left the world wondering: where had Lord Lucan gone?
Early Life: A Gentleman’s Beginnings
Richard John Bingham entered the world with a privileged background, born to George Bingham and his wife, Kaitlin, in an environment characterised by the aristocracy yet underpinned by their staunch socialist beliefs. Young Lucan's early years were spent in the care of a nursemaid at the family’s home in London. But as World War II darkened Europe, his family made the decision to send him and his sister, Jane, to the countryside in Wales. Eventually, like many families of status hoping to shield their children from the dangers of war, they journeyed further afield to Canada and finally America, where they remained for five years.
Returning to the UK in 1945, Lucan attended Eton College, where he earned the nickname “Lucky” — a nod to both his future fortunes and his penchant for gambling. It was here that he developed a taste for risk, one that would come to define much of his later life.
Love, Marriage, and a Luxurious Lifestyle
In the early 1960s, Lucan crossed paths with Veronica Duncan, a keen artist and model who moved within London’s upper circles. Introduced by her sister’s husband, William Shand Kydd, she met Lucan at a social function in a golf club. By November 1963, they were married, a union blessed by high society figures and even members of the royal family. After a grand honeymoon aboard the Orient Express, they settled into a Belgravia home, which Veronica set about decorating with opulent furnishings.
Their family soon expanded. Their first child, Lady Frances Bingham, was born in October 1964, followed by Lord George Bingham in 1967, and Lady Camilla Bingham in 1970.
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 Dobermann for walks. Lunch at the Clermont Club was followed by afternoon games of backgammon. Returning home to change into black tie, the earl typically spent the remainder of the day at the Clermont, gambling into the early hours, watched sometimes by Veronica. In 1965, 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".
Lucan 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. 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 power boats. 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.
While they projected the image of a perfect family to the outside world, behind closed doors, their marriage was less than idyllic. Veronica suffered from post-natal depression, which cast a long shadow over their home life, and Lucan’s gambling habit persisted, eventually spiralling into significant financial difficulties.
The Unraveling Marriage
In 1960, Lucan experienced a substantial win of £26,000 from gambling, leading him to leave his banking job and pursue high-stakes gambling full-time. The euphoria of winning, however, was short-lived. By the early 1970s, his luck turned, and he began to rely heavily on family trust funds and loans from friends to maintain his lifestyle. Luxuries like holidays and powerboat racing filled his life, but his finances grew increasingly precarious.
The pressures of Lucan’s gambling debts and Veronica’s mental health struggles began to erode their marriage, which finally dissolved in 1972. Lucan moved into a small residence nearby but remained determined to gain custody of their children. The couple’s separation was contentious, with Lucan allegedly going to lengths to gather evidence of Veronica’s unfitness as a mother, including surveillance of the family home and consultations with medical professionals who ultimately attested to her struggle with depression but refuted any claims of “madness.”
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 on Veronica's being unable to care for the children, but at the hearing he was instead forced to defend his own behaviour toward her.
The court case then awarded custody to Veronica, with Lucan allowed access every other weekend.
The impact of losing the court case had a serious impact on Lucan. Not only had he lost custody of his children, it had also cost him around £20,000 and his finances were already in a perilous position.
It was then that Lucan's behaviour towards his ex-wife intensified, with him watching her every move and even recording phone calls.
He also began to withhold the money she needed to provide food and the live-in nanny she was required to have as part of the court order.
Even Lucan's friends had concerns about his erratic behaviour, especially when his drinking and smoking increased. He even, drunkenly, talked about killing Veronica to save him from bankruptcy.
Some even said he had talked of 'buying' his children from Veronica, and asked one friend for a loan of £100,000.
Determined not to lose custody of her children, Veronica got a part-time job at the local hospital to make what money she could and after a series of temporary nannies, employed Sandra Rivett in late 1974.
Then, in October 1974, the clouds around him seemed to have lifted. Friends remarked how his obsession with having his children returned to him eased and he was said to be happy, once again gambling until the early hours of the morning.
But then, on November 7, 1974, he broke with his usual strict routine. Lucan failed to meet a friend for an arranged meal at 3pm at The Clermont, and several other friends and business associates earlier that day.
He met a friend, literary agent Michael Hicks-Beach, at his flat at around 6:30pm driving him home at about 8pm, unusually not in his usual Mercedes, but an "old, dark and scruffy Ford".
Just before 10pm and dressed only in a nightgown, the Countess of Lucan burst into the Plumbers Arms pub in Belgravia, London,, screaming for help. The landlord said later that 37-year-old Lady Lucan was “covered from head to toe in blood” and shrieked: “Help me! Help me! I’ve just escaped from being murdered . . . he’s murdered the nanny.”
The “he” in question, an inquest jury later decided, was Lady Lucan’s husband, Lord Richard John Bingham, Seventh Earl of Lucan. Armed with a piece of lead piping, he allegedly bludgeoned to death Sandra Rivett, the 29-year-old nanny who cared for his three children, mistaking her for his wife, Veronica. He then tried to kill Lady Lucan, police claimed.
Lady Lucan later claimed that after putting the younger children to bed, at about 8:55 pm Sandra asked her if she would like a cup of tea, before heading downstairs to the basement kitchen to make one. Wondering what had delayed her nanny when she did not come back, Lady Lucan descended from the first floor and called to Rivett from the top of the basement stairs when she was attacked. As she screamed for her life, her attacker told her to "shut up." Lady Lucan later claimed at that moment to have recognised her husband's voice. The two 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.
Lucan disappeared immediately after the attacks and nobody has officially seen him since, apart from a friend, Susan Maxwell-Scott.
It was established that after Lady Lucan raised the alarm her husband drove 45 miles to Uckfield in East Sussex, where his close friends, Ian and Susan Maxwell-Scott, lived. Ian was away but Susan invited in her dishevelled visitor.
She said later he told her he was passing by the house when he saw Veronica being attacked by a man. He let himself in but slipped in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. He told Mrs Maxwell-Scott that the attacker ran off, and that Veronica was "very hysterical" and accused him of having hired a hitman to kill her.
While at the Maxwell-Scotts, Lucan took time out to phone his mother and to write two letters to his brother-in-law, Bill Shand-Kydd. One of them, dated 7th Nov, 1974, read (in part):
Dear Bill, The most ghastly circumstances arose tonight . . . When I interrupted the fight at Lower Belgrave St. and the man left, Veronica accused me of having hired him. I took her upstairs and tried to clean her up. She lay doggo for a bit and when I was in the bathroom left the house. “The circumstantial evidence against me is strong in that V will say it was all my doing. I will also lie doggo for a bit . . . V. has demonstrated her hatred for me in the past and would do anything to see me accused. Yours ever John
The car that Lucan had used to reach Uckfield was later found bloodstained and abandoned at the nearby port of Newhaven, from where ferries sailed regularly to France.
A warrant for the peer’s arrest, to answer charges of murdering Sandra Rivett, and attempting to murder his wife, was issued on 12 November 1974. In his absence, an inquest jury later decided that the cause of Ms Rivett’s death was "Murder by Lord Lucan.”
In Britain, interest in the case has scarcely dwindled over the decades and there have been many reported sightings of Lord Lucan in countries including Portugal, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Mozambique and New Zealand.
There are even claims that he fled to India and lived life as a hippy called “Jungly Barry.” One bizarre story has it that he shot himself and his body was fed to tigers at a zoo.
Lord Lucan was legally declared dead in 1999 and a death certificate was issued in 2016. Susan Maxwell-Scott, the last person officially to see him alive, died in September, 2004, taking any secrets she might have held to the grave.
In a television interview in June 2017, Lady Lucan, who had identified her husband as the attacker on that infamous night, shared her belief that he had chosen to end his own life, calling it a “brave” decision. She remarked, “I would say he got on the ferry and jumped off in the middle of the Channel in the way of the propellers so that his remains wouldn’t be found – I think quite brave.”
Just three months after this interview, Lady Lucan, formally known as Veronica, Dowager Countess of Lucan, was found dead in her home at the age of 80. Her son, George Bingham, the 8th Earl Lucan, noted, “She passed away at home, alone and apparently peacefully.”
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