Detectives believe Lord Lucan intended to murder his wife and killed the nanny by mistake
John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, vanished after the body of nanny Sandra Rivett was found at the family’s London home on November 7, 1974.
Lady Lucan was bludgeoned when she ran downstairs to investigate, but managed to escape and raise the alarm.
Lord Lucan’s blood-stained car was later found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex, but he was never successfully traced.
Lucan was never seen in public again, and his body was never found, leading to decades of fevered speculation about his whereabouts.
In 1975, an inquest jury declared him to have been Ms Rivett’s killer.
Detectives believe the aristocrat – an abusive husband and heavy gambler nicknamed ‘Lucky Lucan’ – intended to murder his wife and killed the nanny by mistake.
His marriage to Lady Lucan had been described as ‘grimly unhappy.’
The mystery of Lord Lucan’s disappearance still intrigues Britain.
His marriage to Lady Lucan (pictured with their son George, three) had been described as ‘grimly unhappy’
The High Court declared him dead for probate purposes in 1999, but there have been scores of reported sightings around the world, in countries including Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
In an ITV documentary last year, Lady Lucan said she believed Lord Lucan had jumped off a ferry shortly after the killing.
‘I would say he got on the ferry and jumped off in the middle of the Channel in the way of the propellers so that his remains wouldn’t be found,’ she said, calling what she believed to be his final act ‘brave.’
The couple had three children.
In 2016 a court issued a ‘presumption of death’ certificate for Lord Lucan, a ruling that cleared the way for the couple’s son, George Bingham, to become the 8th Earl of Lucan.