Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan
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Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934 - disappeared 8 November 1974) was or is a British peer who disappeared in 1974 after his children's nanny was found murdered. His current whereabouts are unknown, and many, including his wife, presume him to be dead.
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[edit] Early life and career
The son of George Charles Patrick Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan and Kaitilin Elizabeth Anne (née Dawson),[1] Lord Lucan was educated at Eton College.[2] [3] He went on to serve in the Coldstream Guards. He had two sisters and one brother.[1] His father died and he inherited the Earldom when he was just 15 years old.[1] Lord Lucan's mother died in 1985.[1] While a student at Eton, Lucan befriended the likes of James Goldsmith, a fellow conservative[4] and man-about-town who shared Lucan's passion for gambling. Goldsmith and Lucan were members of the five-man Clermont Set, named for John Aspinall's Clermont Club.[5] Aspinall and William "Bill" Shand Kydd were also very close friends of Lord Lucan and Goldsmith. Shand Kydd (coincidentally, a relation by marriage of Frances (née Burke Roche) Shand Kydd, mother of Diana, Princess of Wales) would eventually become Lucan's brother-in-law and one of two people to receive a letter from Lucan on the night of the latter's disappearance; and Aspinall was one of the last people to see Lucan.[6]
[edit] The mystery
Lord Lucan, formerly an officer in the Coldstream Guards but now a professional gambler, was a well-known figure in some quarters of high society. His 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 Ms. Rivett by mistake.
Lord Lucan claimed, somewhat implausibly, to a family friend whom he visited much later the same night, that he had been walking past the house, had seen someone struggling with Lady Lucan and had entered the house to assist her. (It was in this house in Uckfield that Lucan was last seen.) Lucan claimed that he calmed her down but that Lady Lucan then kicked him in the testicles and left the house screaming "Murder!" as she ran into a crowded nearby public house. Lucan then panicked, he said, and left the scene. A car Lucan was borrowing at the time was later found abandoned containing some blood of two types in Newhaven.
At an inquest, the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of unlawful killing, naming Lord Lucan as the murderer. Mrs Rivett's death certificate reads: "Cause of death: Blunt Head Injuries inflicted by a named person. MURDER." This was the last time before the introduction of the Criminal Law Act 1977 that an inquest jury was allowed to name a murderer.
[edit] Possible motives
At the time of the murder, Lady Lucan had custody of their three children. Lord Lucan considered his wife to be mentally unstable and wished for custody of the children himself, but British courts seldom grant custody of children away from their mother. This has been put forward as a possible motive for the murder. (In 1982, Lady Lucan received an affidavit, sent through the post, in which her fifteen-year-old son declared he would find it "much more congenial to live as part of the family of his uncle and aunt.")
Another motive given by Greville Howard is that Lord Lucan, wishing to solve his financial problems and avoid bankruptcy, had considered killing Lady Lucan and dropping her body in the Solent.
[edit] Reported sightings
Since the disappearance, many alleged sightings of Lucan have been reported from all over the world, but the police investigation has drawn a total blank in its efforts to find the runaway Earl.
In a curious coincidence in December 1974 police in Australia arrested a man they believed was Lucan but was in fact the British MP John Stonehouse, who had faked his suicide a month earlier.
In one of the more bizarre claims, an affidavit in the possession of the Daily Mirror records the account of a Bedfordshire woman, formerly in the employ of John Aspinall. This claims that the fugitive Lucan was sheltered by Aspinall at his zoo which resulted in Lucan being mauled to death by a tiger and his corpse hurriedly disposed of. In 2000, Aspinall himself gave an interview in which he said that in his opinion, Lucan had committed suicide by scuttling the powerboat that he kept at Newhaven. Aspinall said that he had no doubt that Lucan had killed the nanny, but that it was a mistake and Lucan had intended to kill his wife (a widely-held belief) and had killed himself out of shame for the botched job he had done.
In September 2003 a book entitled Dead Lucky: Lord Lucan The Final Truth, written by Duncan MacLaughlin, a former Scotland Yard detective, claimed to have solved the mystery of Lucan's disappearance. The author claimed that Lucan fled to Goa, India, arriving there a year after the death of his children's nanny. The book includes photos taken there in 1991 of a man whose looks are similar to Lucan's, including his lack of earlobes — although it later turned out Lucan had normal earlobes. The man, who died in 1996, was known in Goa as Barry Halpin (or, according to the book, "Jungly 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".[6]
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 (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.
Sightings continue - as recently as 2005, a number of sightings were reported in and around Godalming, England in what became known as the "Mark Way" affair. Local solicitor, Ackroyd Jackson, is quoted as saying that Lucan may still be in the area. Surrey Police maintain the sightings are a hoax.
[edit] Probate
In 1999 the High Court granted probate. The 7th Earl of Lucan was presumed deceased in 1992.[7] Whether he is actually dead or not remains a mystery. As no death certificate has been issued, his earldom cannot yet be inherited by his son, George Bingham, Lord Bingham. However, probate on his estate has been granted; the net value remaining amounted to only £14,709.
Lady Lucan also believes her husband to be dead, and sometimes refers to herself as Dowager Countess of Lucan.
[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.[8]
A film called Bloodlines: Legacy of a Lord[9] was made about his life and his disappearance. It is set in 1997 and follows the story of a journalist searching for information about Bingham. Most of the film is told in flashback.
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."[10] Christy Moore made the same joke in his song "Lisdoonvarna." [11] A similar joke was used 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 clear an alibi for Lee Harvey Oswald and was in possession of Shergar.
Ian Botham had used the phrase 'disappeared like Lord Lucan' in respect to England's Wicketkeeper Chris Read who had disappeared from the cricketing scene a month later after he was selected for the Ashes Cricket Series in November/December/January 06/07.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b c d The Peerage Retrieved on 17 January 2007.
- ^ Fraser, Nick (23 November 2005) "You can take the boy out of Eton..." The Guardian. Retrieved on 17 January 2007.
- ^ Kirby, Terry (7 December 2005) "Eton's old boy network." The Independent. Retrieved on 17 January 2007.
- ^ Bright, Martin (9 January 2005) "Desperate Lucan dreamt of fascist coup." The Observer. Retrieved on 17 January 2007.
- ^ Pearson, John, The Gamblers, Century publishers, 7 July 2005. ISBN 1844132056.
- ^ a b (9 September 2003) "Lord Lucan claim dismissed." The BBC. Retrieved on 18 January 2007.
- ^ (27 October 1999) "Lord Lucan officially dead." The BBC.
- ^ Lady Lucan's official site
- ^ "Bloodlines: Legacy of a Lord." (1997) Vine International Pictures, Ltd.
- ^ [1]. Shergar was a horse who was stolen from his stable, possibly by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
- ^ Lyrics of "Lisdoonvarna" on ChristyMoore.com
[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
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Official Website of the Countess of Lucan - Setting the Record Straight
- The Lucan Review
- Jungly Barry website
- Lord Lucan Forum
- 1975: Missing earl guilty of murder — BBC News On This Day, 19 June 2006
| Peerage of Ireland | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by George Bingham |
Earl of Lucan 1964–? |
Succeeded by Status of title uncertain |
