READ: Lord Lucan’s wife’s unsettling personal letters revealing torrid family life with the infamous Earl who she says was ‘paranoid’ before nanny Sandra Rivett’s death

Five decades ago, the 7th Earl of Lucan vanished without a trace after his children’s nanny was found bludgeoned to death at his home in Belgravia, London. 

Richard John Bingham – also known as Lord Lucan – disappeared on November 8, 1974, leaving behind his three young children and estranged wife. 

His disappearance has remained shrouded in mystery, especially after his wife Veronica Duncan blamed him for their nanny’s death on the night of November 7, 1974. 

She staggered into a pub near their home, covered ‘head to toe in blood’, and accused Lord Lucan of attacking her and killing Sandra at their home before fleeing the scene. 

Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Lucan’s disappearance, a three-part BBC docuseries will re-examine the cold case that captivated Britain’s interest – through the eyes of one man still seeking justice for Sandra. 

The BBC Two programme follows Hampshire builder, and Sandra’s son, Neil Berriman along on his quest for the truth of what happened to Lord Lucan – and offers a shocking new theory about the earl’s wherabouts. 

Prior to his disappearance, Lord Lucan had been facing a series of personal struggles prior, including a gambling addiction, spiraling debt, and a bitter custody battle that further led to an unhealthy fixation on his wife. 

On the night Sandra Rivett was found dead, Lord Lucan’s estranged wife, Veronica Mary Duncan, burst into The Plumbers Arms pub – evidently wounded – in the Belgravia area and told the shocked room that her husband had attacked her.

Lord Lucan later fled to a friend’s property in East Sussex, where he reportedly told his mother and friend that he had intervened in an attack on his family. 

The following day, on November 8, 1974, the Earl vanished without a trace, after evidently abandoning his car in Newhaven. The interiors were stained with blood and the boot contained a piece of bandaged lead pipe – similar to one found at the murder scene. 

Police issued a warrant for his arrest, but Lord Lucan was never found, and he was later declared dead in absentia in October, 1999.

However, extraordinary letters written by Lady Lucan unearthed in 2019 have thrown a new light on her torrid relationship with her husband, before the events of November 7, 1974 further tore the family apart.  

The typed letters were uncovered by builders working on the family guest house in Belgravia that Lady Lucan – who died in September 2017 – moved in to in 1977.

In the letters to her solicitor, Lady Lucan documents her bitter battle with her husband over the custody of their three children, and complains about being ‘portrayed as a b****’ in a negative profile in an American magazine.

In one exchange, she writes that the legal proceedings are ‘bringing out the worst in my husband’ who she said has been driven ‘paranoid’ with envy, according to The Times.

The couple’s relationship had soured years before, and at the time of his flight, they were arguing over the future of their three children.

The letters that shed a new light on the row were found at the £3,250,000 house in Eaton Row, west London, which is being sold by Knight Frank after £1million worth of renovations.

Lady Lucan’s longest letter is a furious instruction to sue the New Review magazine for libel for a piece where they portrayed her as a ‘b****’ whose ‘neurotic’ behaviour had taken a toll on her husband.

In a 10-page rebuke, she wrote: ‘I submit that I am a perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong mainly because of financial problems.’

Lady Lucan also revealed her anger after her husband ‘wrongly assumed’ she had a mental illness. 

The letter read: ‘He wrongly assumed I was suffering from a medical problem, but if I was suffering from anything at all it was the normal fears which any mother would feel if she could see no security for her children.’

The aristocrat also wrote about how her life spiralled into isolation as she was palmed off by her former friends after her split from Lord Lucan.

Other letters in the collection include ones written to Lady Lucan by a journalist from The News Of The World and another from her lawyers.

Tragically, in 2017, Veronica died by suicide at the age of 80 from a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol, an inquest was told. 

She died alone in the very home where the family’s nanny had been murdered 50 years  ago, after previously self-diagnosing herself with Parkinson’s disease. 

The second episode of Lucan airs tonight on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.