The son of a nanny murdered by Lord Lucan has blasted police for not arresting a man living in an Australian Buddhist commune who he claims is the infamous killer.
Neil Berriman’s mother Sandra Rivett was murdered by Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, in November 1974. He has has never been seen since.
Her son, Mr Berriman sensationally claimed in January that Lucan is alive and well and living as a Buddhist in Australia.
Mr Berriman, from West Sussex, claimed that Bingham is housebound and awaiting a major operation after decades living Down Under. He spoke to the Met who reassured him they will look into his claims.
Now, Mr Berriman has described parts of a new police inquiry as a ‘farce’ and fears Bingham, who would now be 85, could die before he is ever brought to justice.
Neil Berriman, above, has blasted police for not arresting a man living in an Australian Buddhist commune who he claims is her infamous killer
The father-of-two would later find out he was Sandra Rivett’s (pictured) son, and 12 years ago began searching for Lucan
Her son, Mr Berriman sensationally claimed in January that Lord Lucan is alive and well and living as a Buddhist in Australia. Above, file image of Lord Lucan
‘Why is this taking so long? I’m so horrendously frustrated and disappointed,’ he told the Daily Mirror.
‘This man is unwell and I want him brought to justice before he dies.
‘It’s kept me up at night the thought he could die without the Australian police knocking on his door. No one I know can understand why the police have not knocked on his door and interviewed him.’
He added that the police have ‘credible evidence’ that this man is one of the most notorious killers in history.
‘What everyone wants is for him to die. The authorities want him to die so that this ‘problem’ – as they see it – just goes away,’ he told the publication.
‘I want justice for Sandra. I am the son of a murder victim and I want justice as well.
‘The establishment have closed ranks on this. I’m a massive thorn in their side. They didn’t want him to be found.’
Scotland Yard told MailOnline earlier this year that Sandra Rivett’s case remains ‘unsolved’ and ‘open’ more than 45 years after she was bludgeoned to death with a length of lead piping and her body then stuffed into a mail-sack in Lucan’s basement.
Lord Richard John Bingham with his fiancee Veronica Duncan on the announcement of their engagement in 1963
Lord Lucan’s blood-stained car was found abandoned in East Sussex, but he was never successfully traced, and despite sightings in countries all over the globe the most likely theory was that he committed suicide by scuttling the powerboat he kept at Newhaven and jumping in the sea with rocks in his pockets.
In 1975, an inquest jury declared Lucan to have been Ms Rivett’s killer, and in 2016 a court issued a ‘presumption of death’ certificate for him, a ruling that cleared the way for the couple’s son, George Bingham, to become the 8th Earl of Lucan.
But in January, in a quite extraordinary claim, 52-year-old Neil Berriman says he has located Lucan, who he says is now a Buddhist who turned 85 last month but is seriously ill.
Neil Berriman’s mother Sandra Rivett was murdered by Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, in November 197
Mr Berriman claimed the peer originally lived in Perth after escaping to Australia, but moved to another part of the country after falling out with friends.
However, he told the Mirror that the latest police investigation has been a ‘farce’.
‘I’ve put in so much hard work and nothing has happened to take us forward. I have given the police all the evidence I gathered.
‘I have made several trips to visit the Yard in London this year. I gave them so much evidence.
‘On one occasion they didn’t even have the right computer equipment to download all my information.
‘It’s a farce.’
Father-of-two Mr Berriman, who lives in West Sussex, with his wife Kim, only learned he was Ms Rivett’s son in 2007.
29-year-old Sandra was — an inquest ruled in 1975 — most likely murdered by Lucan, who’d mistaken her for his estranged wife, Veronica, with whom he was locked in a bitter custody battle.
After killing Ms Rivett (right) Lord Lucan’s (left) blood-stained car was later found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex, but he was never successfully traced
John Bingham, Lord Lucan is pictured with his wife Veronica Duncan in October 1963
John Richard Bingham, Earl of Lucan, and Veronica Duncan after their marriage
Around 13 years ago Mr Berriman opened brown envelope left to him by his adoptive mother, Audrey, when she died, which revealed Ms Rivett was his birth mother. He then had to come to terms with the fact she was brutally murdered in the darkened basement kitchen of the Lucan family’s Belgravia home.
Since then he has been hunting for Lucan himself.
Detectives believe the aristocrat – an abusive husband and heavy gambler nicknamed ‘Lucky Lucan’ – intended to murder his wife and killed the nanny by mistake.
Lucan was never seen in public again, and his body was never found, leading to decades of fevered speculation about his whereabouts.
Despite Lord Lucan being formally declared dead in February 2016, Mr Berriman claimed he acted on a detailed tip that he was still alive.
He spent £30,000 of his own money on private investigations into Lord Lucan’s supposed whereabouts.
He said: ‘He has been alive all this time. Lying about who he is. Lying about it to his new friends.
Lady Lucan in 2017 (left) and with Lord Lucan before they married on November 20 1974
‘They are fully aware he is a mystery elderly Englishman and not who he is claiming to be.
‘The people he lives with know he has a mystery past and what he tells them does not add up. They have had their suspicions for many years.
‘Lucan is a deceitful conman and he is the man who murdered my mother.’
In 1975, an inquest jury declared Lucan to have been Ms Rivett’s killer.
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 in 2017, 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.’
Lady Lucan was found dead in September 2017 at her home in Belgravia where her husband Lord Lucan famously disappeared.
Lady Lucan was one of the last people to see her husband alive.
The countess was in the house watching TV in her bedroom that night when the 29-year-old nanny Sandra Rivett was killed as she went downstairs to the unlit basement to make her employer a cup of tea.
The countess contends that she disturbed her husband after the fatal assault. He hit her four times with a length of bandaged metal piping before she grabbed his genitals.
Lord Lucan, right, with his friend Sir James Goldsmith, father of Zac Goldsmith, in a rare colour photo of the fugitive
Recalling the attack she said: ‘I’d started moving towards the cloakroom when someone rushed out and hit me about four times on the head with something hard. I screamed.
‘A voice said: ‘Shut up!’ I just had time to register that the man was my husband when he thrust three gloved fingers down my throat.
‘At this point, I started fighting back in earnest, but he switched tactics — trying to strangle me and then to gouge out my eyes. I gasped: ‘Please don’t kill me, John!’
Then, after she had persuaded her husband to get her a glass of water, she fled to a nearby pub and raised the alarm.
She recalled: ‘He told me, ‘I’ll go to Broadmoor for this’. [Our children] George and Camilla were seven and three when it happened, and asleep in bed.’
Lord Lucan fled the murder scene in a car he had borrowed.
His body has never been found.