What happened to Lord Lucan when the BBC airs a new documentary?

BBC’s new three-parter true crime documentary Lucan investigates the murder of Sandra Rivett, who was murdered by her employer, Richard John Bingham, better known by his title Lord Lucan.

Lucan is explored through the experience of Hampshire builder Neil Berriman, who was forced to find answers after learning that he is Sandra’s son following the death of his adoptive mother. This was a discovery he made thirty years after the death of his birth mother from an envelope containing details pointing to his true parentage.

Lucan was believed to have committed suicide after committing the murder, but despite a decades-long manhunt, his body was never discovered. Over the years it was said to have been sighted all over the world, from New Zealand to India, France and South Africa, but those clues always remained cold.

Together with the help of investigative journalist Glen Campbell, Lucan is Neil’s attempt to uncover the truth surrounding his birth mother’s death and answer once and for all the question, “What really happened to Lord Lucan?”

Dead or in hiding, this is what happened to the Bingham after the tragic murder of Sandra Rivett.

What happened to Sandra Rivett?

On November 7, 1974, a distressed Lady Veronica Lucan staggered out of her home and entered The Plumbers Arms pub, screaming that she had narrowly escaped murder. Covered in blood, she stated that her husband was in the house and had killed the nanny.

Sandra had been murdered while making a cup of tea for Lady Lucan in the cellar. When she didn’t appear again, Veronica went downstairs to see why and was attacked by her husband.

Lady Lucan was able to reason with the Lord and during their interaction he admitted that he had accidentally killed Sandra. Veronica managed to escape and when the police arrived some time later, Sandra’s bludgeoned body was discovered in a mailbag in the basement of their Belgravia townhouse. The bloody lead pipe she used to beat her to death was also there.

Shortly after Richard John Bingham disappeared.

What happened to Lord Lucan?

After committing the murder, Lord Lucan went to the home of his friend Ian Maxwell-Scott, who lived in Uckfield in Sussex. There he told Ian’s wife Susan that the events that had occurred were a misunderstanding.

He claimed he saw an intruder struggling with his wife in the basement and intervened, causing the intruder to run away. Fearing he would be accused of attacking his wife, he ran away.

Lucan was last seen in the early hours of the following morning leaving Uckfield.

Why did Lord Lucan kill the nanny?

A historic inquest was held in June 1975. Based on the evidence, it took the jury 31 minutes to convict Lucan of Sandra Rivett’s murder.

This included the discovery of the car Lucan was driving, which contained blood spatter matching the blood type of both his wife and Sandra, along with another pipe that resembled the murder weapon.

The gripping inquest also revealed that Richard’s intended victim was his estranged wife Veronica, with whom he was embroiled in a tense custody battle over their three children.

Lucan was aware that his wife was making a cup of tea at 9 p.m. and, believing that the nanny would be free that evening, he attempted to kill Lady Lucan.

A friend of Lord Lucan’s, Greville Howard, revealed to police that Lucan had talked about how killing his wife would save him from bankruptcy because he could reclaim his house. He even went so far as to claim he could dump her body in the Solent.

Was Lord Lucan ever found?

During the early days of the investigation, police believed Lucan had fled to Africa. Some speculated that wealthy friends from his gambling club, known as the “de Clermont set”, had helped him escape or even gone to the extreme of killing him or encouraging him to commit suicide because of the shame he had caused .

Both his friends and family continued to insist that he had committed suicide and he was eventually officially declared dead by Britain’s High Court in February 2016, despite many sightings of him over the years. However, Neil believes he is still alive at the age of 90.

The documentary states that both he and Glen Campbell believed Lucan was living in Australia after assuming the identity of a man named Derek Crowther (now called Christopher Newan). However, this was ignored by the police.

Neil and Christopher had a filmed FaceTime conversation in which Neil tried and failed to get a confession out of Christopher.

Christoffel appeared in the documentary and admitted that he had gone to Eton and had ties to the royal family – like Lord Lucan – but denied being or knowing Lord Lucan.

Lucan later confirmed that Christopher had performed in the show’s production Facade in Canada under the names Peter Jason/Jenny Romain in July 1969, five years before the murder, casting doubt on their belief that he is Lord Lucan.

Neil nevertheless remains convinced that Christopher is Lord Lucan. The title card at the end of the documentary reads:

“The old man, Christopher, has since chosen to share further details about his life…

“When he was in his twenties, he was also called Pierre Johannsen. He was conceived on Halloween 1935 during a magical ritual at Stonehenge. His father listed on his birth certificate is not his real father. His biological father was a puppeteer who performed for the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at Buckingham Palace Christopher recognizes that Neil still thinks he is Lord Lucan.

All episodes of Lucaan are now available to watch on BBC iPlayer. The documentary will also air on Wednesday 6, Thursday 7 and Friday 8 at 9pm.

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TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her master’s degree in magazine journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry since then. She spent six years honing her analytical assessment skills at the Good domestic institute ultimately acting head of Food Testing. She also freelanced in film and TV journalism from 2013 to 2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. She joined in 2021 Digital spy as a TV writer, where she can delve into more of what she loves while watching copious amounts of television, all in the name of her work. Since taking on the role, she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also works as a published author, the book Gothic angel.