The BBC is to air a documentary series looking to solve the mysterious disappearance of Lord Lucan following the murder of his children’s nanny Sandra Rivett almost 50 years ago.
The three-part series follows Ms Rivett’s son, Hampshire builder Neil Berriman, who has been consumed by the case since he discovered his mother’s identity at the age of 40, having been put for adoption as a baby.
Ms Rivett’s dead body was discovered in November 1974 in the basement of 46 Lower Belgrave Street in central London, with the chief suspect Eton-educated John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan.
Lord Lucan was officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999, but there have been reported sightings in Australia, Ireland, Africa and New Zealand, and even claims that he fled to India and lived life as a hippy called “Jungly Barry”.
On the night of the peer’s disappearance, the nanny’s attacker also turned on Lord Bingham’s mother, Lady Lucan, beating her severely before she managed to escape and raise the alarm at a nearby pub, the Plumbers Arms.
Lord Lucan’s car was found abandoned and soaked in blood in Newhaven, East Sussex, and an inquest jury declared him the killer a year later.
Mr Berriman has met police officers and corresponded with Lord Lucan’s wife Veronica, prior to her death in 2017.
In the series he receives the support of a former BBC investigative journalist, Glen Campbell, and the pair map out what seems to be Lord Lucan’s likely escape from his homeland to a life of exile in Africa.
In the series, the two men unearth persuasive information that indicates Lord Lucan’s powerful friends helped to mastermind a new life for the aristocrat in Mozambique under the alias John Crawford.
On a research trip to South Africa, Mr Campbell secures an interview with Lord Lucan’s expatriate brother, Hugh, who points them onto a trail that leads to Eastern religion, Buddhist retreats and ultimately the east and west coasts of Australia.
In 2016, Lord Lucan’s son Lord George Bingham inherited his title as the eighth Earl after he applied for a death certificate 42 years after his father vanished, under the Presumption of Death Act, which came into effect in 2014.
Clare Sillery, head of commissioning, documentaries, said: “The disappearance of Lord Lucan, following the murder of Sandra Rivett, is a mystery that has baffled the police and fascinated the press for half a century.
“Whilst there have been many programmes following Lord Lucan and his possible fate, Sandra’s story has rarely been told.
“By following Neil’s deeply personal quest to seek justice for his mother we gain a unique perspective, one which sees an ordinary man take on the British establishment in his search for the fugitive Lord.”
Lucan is set to air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer this autumn.
