Why the mystery of Lord Lucan's disappearance still fascinates 50 years on

It is one of the greatest and most enduring mysteries of the 20th Century – and this week will mark the 50th Anniversary of the day when the 7th Earl of Lucan literally disappeared off the face of the earth.

Not so many young people know about the fugitive Earl, but for people over the age of 50 – and for journalists such as myself – the story is absolutely riveting.

It all started with the most profound tragedy: a murder. But what makes it all the more pitiful is that it was a botched murder. Poor Sandra Rivett, the nanny who ended up bludgeoned to death in Belgravia, West London, was never the intended victim.

Although we can’t be 100 per cent sure who killed Sandra Rivett, it was almost certainly Lord Lucan, a 39-year-old Old Etonian blueblood who had frittered away his entire fortune at the Clermont casino in London. He’d been planning to kill not Sandra Rivett but his estranged wife Veronica.

John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (Lord Lucan) | Getty Images

Since that dark night in November 1974, the Earl has never been seen or heard of again – and despite the horror of Sandra Rivett’s murder, it is the story of the fugitive Earl on the run that has been fascinating people now for five decades.

There are some small questions about the actual murder – it may perhaps have been committed by an accomplice – but the question that has been pondered in newsrooms in Edinburgh, and in dining rooms across the country, and in police stations all over the world is this: what the hell happened to Lord Lucan?

For journalists like me, the Lord Lucan story has long been considered to be the Great White Whale of Scoops. We all know the story is out there, just waiting to be cracked, and the journalist who eventually tracks down Lord Lucan will be celebrated for all time.

But no-one has ever come close to finding the Earl - though that certainly has not prevented hordes of journalists and detectives from jetting all round the world to look for him. The fugitive Earl has been spotted everywhere from Alaska to Grand Cayman, as well as in at least a dozen countries in Africa. As a former Fleet Street hack, I have also dipped my toe in this glorious hunt for the rogue Earl.

The latest “discovery” of the Earl has occurred in Australia, brought to our TV screens this month in Lucan, a three-part BBC documentary. In it, Sandra Rivett’s son Neil Berriman contends that Lucan is now a Buddhist pensioner living in Brisbane. Berriman was adopted at birth and only learned that Sandra was his mother 17 years ago; he is a self-confessed Lucan obsessive.

I am, shall we say, sceptical about Berriman’s discovery. Lucan has been discovered several times over, including most memorably living in Goa, India, under the name “Jungle Barry”, but every time it’s turned out to be total moonshine. I don’t doubt that soon enough Berriman’s Lucan will be added to the long list of false alarms.

John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (1934 - ?) with his future wife, Veronica Duncan (1937 - 2017) after they announced their engagement, 14th October 1963 | Getty Images

Certainly the Metropolitan Police are not unduly concerned by Berriman’s discovery, having issued the following statement in 2020: “Following extensive inquiries and investigations by the Australia Federal Police on behalf of the Metropolitan Police, the person was conclusively eliminated from the investigation.”

One of the more interesting details about the fugitive Earl is that for the last 50 years, his friends and family have all consistently said the same thing: he killed himself. Couldn’t take the shame. Couldn’t take the ignominy of being on the run. Couldn’t live with the murder. So he just killed himself, whilst somehow also managing to dispose of his own body. Most likely scenario? He jumped off a boat with a chain round his neck and dropped to the bottom of the Channel. (His getaway car was discovered a few days after the murder in Newhaven, East Sussex.)

But, really, the only evidence that the Earl killed himself is that we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him for five decades.

I, however, would contend the complete opposite – that the Earl was a gambler who was always hoping for a last miracle throw of the dice. Just because he’d murdered the wrong woman, I don’t think it was in his nature to kill himself. Personally, I think he got away – and might even yet be still alive. He’s just coming up for his 90th birthday.

There are some tiny incidental clues which indicate that the Earl may have made it out to Africa. His old watch turned up at a pawnbrokers in South Africa; loose-lipped secretaries talked of midnight flits from secret airports. It was even put about that Lucan’s three children were sent off on an African safari so that their father could watch them from a bush with some binoculars.

Crucial to the getaway theory is that Lucan had two very rich, very unscrupulous friends – Jimmy Goldsmith and John Aspinall – who had not just the means and the low-life contacts, but also the motive to get their old pal out of the country. This pair, now dead for over 20 years, never breathed a word of what happened to Lord Lucan, merely sticking to the party line that the Earl had killed himself, but for my money they were absolutely instrumental in getting Lucan out of the country – and then, well, who knows, but having got him out of the country, I think it fair to assume that these multi-millionaires would have given Lucan enough money to set himself up with a new face and a new life.

Though a part of me would much prefer it if the old killer were never found. Once Lucan has been found, the fox will have been shot – and then the mystery is done and the hunt will well and truly be over.

·Lord Lucan – My Story, by William Coles, is published by Legend Press on November 1.