Lord Lucan - Press Awards

Saturday
September 8,
2012
WORLD
EXCL
USIVE
MY STORY
Picture: NICHOLAS BOWMAN
70p
HAUNTED
BY PAST
J MYSTERY
Lucan vanished
after murder
BY
LORD
38
LUCAN’S SON
Son George
speaks out for
the first time
A F TE R
YE A R S
Daily Mirror
DMSL1
Daily Mirror
DMSL1
SATURDAY 08.9.2012
SATURDAY 08.9.2012
EXCLUSIVE: MY STORY BY LORD LUCAN’S SON
Why I
have to
speak
out now
.. after
38 years
TRUTH MUST FINALLY BE TOLD
DAD
THEN
The wealthy aristocrat
in his ermine robes
GEORGE
TODAY
For the sake
of my sanity
I need to lay
my father’s
ghost to rest
Lucan’s son now lives
on the South Coast
J HIDEAWAY
Lady Lucan with
children after
scandal broke
MUM
& DAD
Picture: Nicholas Bowman
2
Lucan and Veronica
before they married
unsolved mysteries in the world. But to me
and my family it is not just an unsolved
andrew.dagnell@mirror.co.uk
mystery. It has been a major part of our lives
which has shaped us into the people
ISSING aristocrat Lord –wea part
are today.
Lucan’s son George Bingham “I know in my own mind what happened to
today breaks his 38-year my father. I also know, after thinking about it
and hard, that now is the right time to tell
silence over the mysterious long
everyone exactly what happened on that
disappearance of his infamous father. horrible night, the night he vanished forever.”
Until now, George has kept his own counsel
He adds: “This is my opportunity to finally
on events surrounding the bloody 1974 killing draw a line under this traumatic episode…
of his nanny Sandra Rivett at the Lucans’ and I want people to know the truth. I have
family home in London in a savage attack that never done an interview like this before and
also left his mother Veronica injured.
I never will again.
But in an exclusive no-holds-barred
“But now is the time to give my account.
interview with the Daily Mirror, George, 45, The definitive account of my father’s last
finally gives his version of events to set the moments and my chance to get rid of the
record straight on what exactly happened in rumours, which have spiralled completely
the family home that night, when he was just out of control ever since.”
seven years old.
Lord Lucan was born Richard John Bingham
Speaking in full for the first time, former in 1934 into one of Britain’s most aristocratic
merchant banker George says: “I know my families – with land in County Mayo granted
father’s disappearance is one of the biggest to them at the end of the 17th century. Previous
BY
M
ANDREW DAGNELL
earls had held high profile roles in
politics and the military. Lucan’s
disappearance on November 7, 1974,
caused a national sensation.
He vanished after 29-year-old nanny
Sandra was bludgeoned to death with a
bandaged length of lead pipe. She had
walked into the basement kitchen after
asking Lucan’s ex-wife Lady Lucan –
known as Veronica – if she would like a
cup of tea. Her killer then placed her
body in a canvas mailsack.
Lady Lucan became concerned Sandra
was taking so long and went to the first
floor to see what had happened.
She called Sandra’s name from the
top of the basement stairs – and was immediately attacked. As she screamed for her
life, her attacker told her to “shut up”.
Lady Lucan ran screaming into the
street to the nearby Plumbers Arms and
He confesses: “It’s hard sharing this.
Some of it, I have never, ever spoken
about, even to those nearest and dearest.
Not even my sisters who were there
that night with me.
“We had a long heart to heart when we
teenagers. And one of my sisters,
Y then the story was were
very shrewdly, said, ‘We don’t want this
splashed across the front in our heads or in our lives’.
of every newspaper in the “My sisters and I made a pact not to
about it again, then we got on
country… and stayed there talk
with our lives.
for weeks and months to come.
“They’ve always left it to me to deal
In June 1975, an inquest jury declared with press and public enquiries, fielding
that Lucan killed Sandra, although them in effect, so they don’t have to deal
George and his family say his father was with it. They’re quite good at not opening
the newspaper when there’s a bad day.
given no defence whatsoever.
“But now I’ve got to tell someone. I’ve
Detectives believe Lucan attacked her
by mistake in the dark, believing she was got to do it, here and now, for my own
Lady Lucan. But George, from London, sanity. So that I can finally lay the ghost
has never fully accepted their account. of my dad to rest.”
It seems like an impossible task, but
one George is finally ready to tackle head
on, only with the Mirror.
the attacker fled. Police arrived and the
children were ushered away while Lady
Lucan was taken to St George’s Hospital
where she was later questioned. The next
day Lucan’s blood-stained car was found
abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex.
B
DAD’S ROLE IN THE MURDER: PAGES 4&5
It’s so hard
sharing this
..things I’ve
never, ever
talked about
TIMETABLE OF TRAGEDY
1963: John Bingham marries coroner’s jury finds Lucan guilty of
Veronica Duncan. His father dies and
he becomes the 7th Earl of Lucan.
1964: The Lucans have daughter
Frances, followed in 1967 by George
and in 1970, Camilla.
1972: The couple separate after a
turbulent Christmas and Lady Lucan
is granted custody of the children.
November 7, 1974. Sandra Rivett is
murdered at the
Lucans’ home.
November 8,
1974: Lucan’s
blood-stained
car is found
abandoned at
J VIOLENCE
Smashed window Newhaven.
June 1975: In
at Lucan house
h
his absence, a
nanny’s murder.
July 1999: Lord Chancellor rejects
George Bingham’s application to
take up his father’s seat in the House
of Lords – because he could not
prove Lord Lucan was dead.
October 1999: Lord Lucan is officially declared dead.
October 2004: The investigation
into Sandra Rivett’s murder is
reopened by Scotland Yard, using
DNA profiling.
February 2012: Fresh allegations
about Lord Lucan’s movements after
the murder emerge as John
Aspinall’s former assistant claims
she helped book flights for the
children to go to Africa to see their
father in 1979 and 1980.
3
10
Sunday Mirror
SM1
9.9.2012
Sunday Mirror
SM1
9.9.2012
11
MY STORY: LORD LUCAN’S SON RELIVES THAT FATEFUL NIGHT
‘One moment
George Bingham
now... he vividly
remembers that
fateful night
Picture:
NICHOLAS
BOWMAN
I was in bed
with cocoa..
then it was
carnage and
blood on the
walls. Nanny
was dead and
Daddy had
’
disappeared
EXCLUSIVE
CRIME SCENE
By ANDREW DAGNELL
andrew.dagnell@sundaymirror.co.uk
London house where nanny was killed
TODAY Lord Lucan’s son
reveals the full grisly horror
of the “terrible carnage”
inside the family home on the
night his nanny Sandra Rivett
was bludgeoned to death.
Inside the
upmarket
home
George Bingham recalls how, at just
seven years old, he was woken abruptly
by policemen, hauled out of his bed and
dragged downstairs.
Officers plunged the house into
darkness so he and his young sisters
couldn’t see the blood-soaked walls.
They were then hidden away with
relatives as the full drama of events
unfolded, and even finger-printed in
the wake of the murder.
Their father Lord Lucan had vanished,
presumed guilty of the grisly attack,
while their mother Veronica was in
hospital having been caught up in the
drama on the night of November 7, 1974.
BLOODSTAINS
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday
Mirror, George, now 45, says: “I rarely,
these days, revisit it in my head.
“But it’s crystal clear because it was
so exciting at the time.
“Something like that sticks in your
memory as a young boy... and I will
never forget it.”
T h e eve n i n g w h i c h e n d e d s o
dramatically had started perfectly
normally. As usual, young George was
tucked up in bed with a cup of cocoa
by 29-year-old Sandra.
The nanny, who had been looking
after the Lucan children for six months,
already felt like a mother to George and
his sisters Frances, then 10, and Camilla,
four. As she crept out of George’s
bedroom she blew him a kiss and turned
out the lights.
He recalls: “Sandra tucked me in as
she always would and said goodnight
with her usual smile.”
Within an hour everything had
changed.
Sandra was dead, bludgeoned to death
with a piece of bandaged lead pipe.
George’s mother Veronica was badly
injured and his father Lord Lucan was
missing, suspected of committing both
violent crimes.
Little George, cosy in his favourite
pyjamas, knew nothing of the horror
until he was suddenly roused from a
deep sleep.
“The next thing I knew I was waking
up with a policeman standing by my
bed,” he says.
“He was telling me to get dressed and
leave the house.”
DARKNESS
Police tried to protect Lucan’s young
children from the full horror of the
crime scene by turning off all the lights.
But George remembers how scary it was
being led downstairs in pitch darkness.
“The officers turned off the lights in
the hallway where there was blood on
the walls and some terrible scenes of
carnage.
“There was so much blood and they
didn’t want us to see it.”
What was to become one of Britain’s
most notorious murders had taken place
just a few feet away in the basement...
and despite being so young George
vividly remembers the chaos.
“I was so young I didn’t really
understand what was happening and
went along with it.”
His parents were getting a divorce
and the proceedings had become very
acrimonious. Detectives believe Lucan
LUCAN
Aristocrat vanished
after the murder
Lucan and wife
Veronica
in 1963
Lucan’s car
abandoned in
Newhaven
NANNY
Bludgeoned to death
with lead pipe
came back to the house and killed
Sandra by mistake, believing in the dark
that she was his estranged wife.
They believe Veronica then disturbed
her husband in the act and he attacked
her too before he fled.
No one knows definitively how the
events played out that night so George’s
testimony is particularly compelling.
He recalls: “I remember the police
officers being very tense but trying to
be very friendly.
“There were several policemen, and
a couple of plain-clothes officers. My
sisters and I were gathered up and
driven by a police car to my grandmother’s
around the corner in St John’s Wood,
where we stayed most of the night. I got
plonked
on the
p
lon
ssofa
ofa and just
went
w
en to sleep.
“We weren’t told exactly what had
happened but we were finger-printed
at some stage. Even us, despite the fact
we were children.”
The next day George, Frances and
Camilla were taken to stay with their
uncle and aunt William and Sarah Gibbs,
in Northamptonshire.
A week later they travelled to Cornwall
to be reunited with their mother. A
media storm followed and speculation
about what actually happened spiralled
out of control.
Scotland Yard was certain that Lucan’s
disappearance – a car he had driven
after the murder was found abandoned
on the Sussex coast at Newhaven –
underlined his guilt. Incredibly, George
and his sisters were not told the full
horror of what had happened until nine
months later.
That’s when their mother finally broke
the news that neither their father nor
their loving nanny were coming back.
BATTLE
“My mother’s relations with my
father’s family were not excellent,” he
says. “And because our parents were
going through a custody battle, we would
often go six months seeing him very
infrequently.
“So when Dad wasn’t around, it didn’t
seem that out of the ordinary.
“So it was my mother’s decision when
she wanted to tell us.
“I remember it vividly.
“She just said, ‘Daddy’s not coming
back’. At one point I cried. I think one
of us asked Mummy about Sandra and
she just told us, ‘She’s not coming back’.
It crept in a bit later that it had
happened downstairs... we didn’t know
at the time.
“At one point she let us read some
newspaper articles, so we could get an
idea of what the world was thinking.
“We were all still very young – it
washed over us.
“It was only years later that it started
to take hold and have an actual effect
on our lives.”
While the loss of his father was
difficult, somehow George says the
sudden loss of his beloved nanny seemed
more heartbreaking at the time.
With genuine fondness, George says:
“My relationship with Sandra was very
good. She was lovely. From time to time,
I used to bundle into her bed and crawl
! ‘WHAT DADDY WAS REALLY LIKE’: Pages 12&13
November 1974... start
of the headline-grabbing mystery
under the sheets with her. She was very
maternal, which I appreciated.
“She hadn’t been with us for very
long, only six to nine months. But she
was a lovely woman.
“It’s always important to remember
this has been a tragedy for the Rivett
family too. Of course I suffered a loss,
but equally so did they.”
12
Sunday Mirror
SM1
Sunday Mirror
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13
MY STORY: LORD LUCAN’S SON ON FUN-LOVING FAMILY MAN
9.9.2012
EXCLUSIVE
By ANDREW DAGNELL
Lucan poses by
Grand Canyon
on 60s holiday
andrew.dagnell@sundaymirror.co.uk
Earl gazes lovingly
at his son George on
trip to Miami in 1973
Father and son in
a tender embrace
in Portugal in 1974
TO the public he’s a murderer,
a fugitive and a playboy aristocrat whose disappearance
sparked a frenzy of speculation
around the world.
But to George Bingham, Lord Lucan
was quite simply “Daddy”... a kind,
caring man and a devoted father who
showered him and his sisters with love
and attention at every opportunity.
And George admits he struggles to
this day with the way his father has
been portrayed since he vanished.
“It’s very difficult for me,” he says.
“You’ll notice he’s always portrayed as
a heavily-suited, super aristocratic gent,
who’s stern and aloof.
“But actually he was a family man.
Relaxed, charming and a kind father.
“I can’t even feel that close to the
rather cold, stern, three-piece chap who
is accused of bashing to death a nanny
while I’m upstairs and asleep.
“I mean, seriously, help me here
because it’s a myth that has gone way,
way beyond the reality.”
George has broken his silence for the
first time since his father
vanished 38 years ago, after
his family’s nanny Sandra
Rivett was battered to death
and his mother, Lady Lucan,
was bludgeoned about the
head at her home. Detectives
believe Lucan killed Sandra
in the dark by mistake,
believing she was his wife.
Pensive looking
Lucan in family
nursery in 1972
Lucan with
daughter in the
Med in 1973
in the Beatles and turn up the
volume on Hey Jude. He used to
tthink it was hilarious... he was a
ffunny man.”
Other memories are more
poignant and show just how gentle
p
Lucan was with his children.
L
When asked what his one, lasting
memory of his father was, George
m
ssays: “I suppose I do remember him
kissing me goodnight quite vividly
k
on one occasion.
o
“We’d had a lovely day together
tthat day. I remember his bristly
moustache.
m
“We’d just been out taking
photographs in the park.
p
“I remember that.”
Even now it’s easy to see there are
similarities between them.
si
He says: “People say I look very
much like my father. And there are
m
some character traits.
so
“Apparently I look like him when
I llaugh. And apparently our laughs
are very similar.
ar
“You never know whether people
are being very kind when they say,
‘You’ve got your father’s eyes’.”
‘Yo
George still remembers the last
time he saw his father.
tim
“It would have been a day or two
before this happened,” says George.
be
b
““I’
I d seen him in the hallway at the
house. He had just come to collect
ho
h
something... maybe some golf clubs.
sso
But it’s a vague memory.”
B
ANGUISH
ALBUM
Today George opens his
family photo album to the
Sunday Mirror, giving a rare
glimpse of what life as a
Lucan was really like.
As George pores over the
photos he and his sisters
cherish, it is clearly a difficult
moment for him.
“ T h i s i s t h e f at h e r I
remember,” says George. “A
kind, caring, charming man.
Not a killer or a fugitive,,
o
which everyone seems to
h ave c a s t h i m a s . ”
It’s the first time he has
shared the photos with
anyone other than his
family and close friends.
They were taken on
family holidays in Miami
and Italy during the late
Sixties and early Seventies,
when George was a young
boy.
They are, George says,
some of the happiest times
he experienced with his
father. And the bond is
clear to see.
In one picture George
clings to his father, who
gazes adoringly at his little
blond-haired son. In another he enjoys a boating
trip with his dad, smiling
and laughing.
The colour in the photos has faded but his
memories are as vivid as
ever. As he flicks through
them George says: “You
can see me beaming away.
I was just very happy. He
was a genuinely affectionate
man. Quite tactile. They were
lovely holidays.
“He was actually a very
liberal father. He would
9.9.2012
Of course young George had no
idea that days later his father would
id
disappear, never to return.
d
While the world went into a
frenzy
of speculation, George and
f
his
h sisters were left without a
ffather.
As any young boy would be, he
was
w devastated.
“I’ve got to admit, a year after he
disappeared
I remember deeply
d
missing
him,” says George. “I
m
remember once or twice I cried.
“At moments of anguish you
might think things were easier if
you had a father.
“In the first year I would think
I’d seen him on the street
– once or twice or three
times. I would wonder a
little bit. But it just faded
quite quickly.
“You know, you’re
young... you learn to
accept things far more
easily than if you’re a
teenager or an adult.
You’ve got to remember,
t h o u g h , we we r e a
typical English upperclass family with
boarding school from the
age of seven.”
For some time, George
and his sisters were not
told exactly what had
happened with his
father, as his mother
incidentally. You don’t last two years at only just inherited after decades of tried to protect them. George was sent
the tables if you aren’t good.
arguing with the taxman.
to a boarding school in north Oxford.
“As the police themselves noted, he
“He loved cars and would drive too
“Unfortunately, like most young boys
was still high-rolling at the end, with quickly, which we all loved as kids.
you get on with your life,” he says.
vast sums going in and out of his bank
“I remember being in the back of his
“You’re at school and you fall on to a
account each week. True, he was de- Merc going up to Northamptonshire and conveyor belt of exams, re-sits and job
clared bankrupt after his disappearance, he would drive so quickly I would be applications. Rather sadly I would have
but that was so we could deal with his swinging across these leather seats, got to know him a lot better if I was 14.
creditors in his absence.
squealing like mad.
That’s when fathers really start to know
“In reality he had a sizeable family
“He used to have one of those eight- their sons.
trust which educated me and I have track players and he would just bang
“Of course it will always be of regret
I didn’t have that opportunity.
“One’s sadness about it really came
with maturity. Looking back on wasted
opportunities... missed relationships.
That’s the sad thing.
“Both for myself and, of course, for
Sandra Rivett’s family.”
MY GENTLE DADDY
George, 45, has fond
memories
always let me go off
and potter on my
own. Or on some
holidays, if it was
snowing, he’d jump
on a bobsleigh ride
with me. He loved us
and we loved him. He
was very much of that
generation of British
people who started to go
abroad very regularly,
so it was always sunny
holidays, beaches,
powerboats... as
you can
see
in the photos. It was quite a sexylooking lifestyle, I remember that, even
as a young boy, though personally I don’t
much care for it now.”
George believes his father’s memory
is etched on the British public’s mind
as an aloof aristocrat, rather than the
man he knew, because at the time
unemployment was high and inflation
had started to spiral out of control.
“There was more of a class issue at
the time of the murder,” says George.
“Here was this aristocratic figure who
could be plucked and offered up to the
wolves as, ‘This is the hate figure please
don’t look at all the other things going
wrong with Britain’. He was a fall guy,
the aristocrat who was always in a
three-piece suit, flying around the world.
He became an absolute caricature.
Unfortunately the public won’t easily let
go of an image once it’s in their minds.
IN TOMORROW’S
“He’s been portrayed in a fashion
which isn’t in any way true.”
Even so, George is under no illusions
about his father’s lifestyle away from
his family. Many have described Lucan
as a playboy who enjoyed all the
trappings of a successful career as a
merchant banker. He often holidayed
with friends in the Bahamas, went
water-skiing and played golf.
He later became a frequent gambler
and an early member of John Aspinall’s
Clermont gaming club in London’s
Berkeley Square.
His gambling developed into a fullblown career, earning him the nickname
Lucky Lucan, although in the early years
he was anything but. He often won at
games such as bridge and backgammon,
but also accumulated huge losses.
On one occasion he lost £8,000, or
about two thirds of his annual income
from family trusts. On another disastrous
night at a casino he lost £10,000 and
had to get help from his stockbroker
uncle John Bevan to repay the debt.
“Of course, some of the things they
say about him that aren’t so flattering
are probably sometimes true,” says
George. “He’s been called a playboy and
to some extent he was.
“He was a gambler for 12 years
certainly, which is quite an achievement
WHAT I THINK REALLY HAPPENED TO MY DAD
12
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
MONDAY 10.9.2012
MONDAY 10.9.2012
BY
EXCLUSIVE: HOW LUCAN DIED
ANDREW DAGNELL
news@mirror.co.uk
LORD Lucan committed suicide a few
hours after Sandra Rivett’s grisly
murder by drowning himself in a
small boat which sank to the bottom
of the icy English Channel, his son
sensationally claims today.
George Bingham is certain that his father
wished to “vanish forever” and so took
his own life after downing whisky and
knocking back sleeping pills taken from a
friend’s bathroom cabinet.
In a candid interview with the Daily
Mirror, George says he believes his dad lost
all sense of perspective as he became
worried he was being framed for the
nanny’s gruesome death in 1974.
Far from claims the 7th Earl of Lucan
escaped and started a new life in Africa,
George insists his dad took his own life six
hours after Sandra was brutally killed.
With a distant look in his eye, George,
45, chooses his words carefully, as he says:
“I think Dad felt backed into a terrible
corner. I think he chose almost immediately
to take his own life.
“He had such a huge sense of pride and
couldn’t bear to consider the horrendous
storm that was coming. It was his intention,
therefore, to vanish... and vanish forever.”
Lucan, who would now be 76, disappeared
in November after Sandra was battered to
death and his wife Veronica bludgeoned
about the head in her lavish home in
Belgravia, Central London.
Detectives believe Lucan killed Sandra
in the dark by mistake, believing she was
his wife. The day after the murder, Lucan’s
blood-stained car was found abandoned in
Newhaven, East Sussex.
On the way there, Lucan had stopped off
at Susan Maxwell-Scott’s house in the
middle of the night, asking his friend for
some sleeping pills.
JUMPED
The crime stunned the nation and, in the
past, friends and family of Lucan have said
the missing Earl probably jumped from a
ferry or off cliffs.
But George, who has kept his theory to
himself until now, has a different version
of events... one, he says, he knows is true.
“Dad adored boats,” he says. “He even
built a powerboat. As a seaman, he would
have known that if you jump from a boat
in the English Channel, you will bloat, float
and be washed up with the tides.”
Lucan certainly understood the perils of
the south coast – he was previously rescued
when his powerboat sank during a Cowes
to Torquay race in 1963.
His son continues: “It seems very likely
he would have had access to a small motor
boat somewhere in Newhaven harbour.
“He would have got on board with a bottle
of whisky and some pills and taken it out
to the 50 metre mark, the point where if
you go down you’re not going to come back
up again, but not so far out that you are in
the shipping lane.
“As the pills kicked in, he would have
opened up the bottom of the boat and let
the water in.
“It would have taken just 10 minutes for
it to sink, but by then he would have been
passing out. It would have been cold, very
cold and he would have died of hypothermia
before the water got in his lungs.
“I am sure, without an ounce of doubt, it
happened before dawn lifted on the
morning after Sandra’s
murder.”
George, who was seven
at the time, does not
believe Lucan killed
Sandra but hopes his
father did have some
part to play that
night... or else, he says,
his disappearance
would have been for
nothing.
George told how
Lucan left behind two
letters written on the day
of the murder, addressed
to his brother-in-law
William Shand Kydd.
He believes these were
“suicide notes”. In one,
Lucan outlined
details of
My dad would have
taken his own life
within hours. He’d
have got on a boat
in the Channel with
a bottle of whisky
and pills, opened up
the bottom and let
the freezing water in
his bank account and
estate. In the other, he told
how he had stumbled into
the midst of the “most
ghastly circumstances” and
said for the children to go
through life knowing he
stood charged with
attempted murder would be
“too much”.
“I don’t like to think what
he wrote in the final letters
was actually true,” says
George. “It means he
would have killed
himself for
Z SEA THEORY
being
Son George, 45
in the wrong place at the wrong time. He
would have died alone in some horrible
spot at his own hand, out of sheer honour
– even though he did nothing.
“Knowing myself, I wouldn’t be as
honourable as that, so I would almost
rather he had some bit-part to play.
“What I am certain of is he wasn’t the
prime mover in the situation but I do
hope, in some sort of weird way, he was
somehow partly culpable.”
Since his disappearance, rumours have
circulated that Lucan fled the country and
lived as a fugitive. Many people have
suggested he was in South Africa.
The theories gathered popularity after
a “cold case review” of Sandra’s murder
was ordered in 2004. And last year,
Lucan’s half-brother Hugh Bingham, 72,
repeated the theory he was somewhere
in Africa. But despite knowing his dad for
just a short while, George says he knew
him well enough to be confident his
theory is the true account.
a straggly beard like Saddam Hussein. He
would have made his decision there and
then and gone that night.
“The reason he hare-footed out of
London was to make sure he could get
away before the dawn, so that he could
completely go, never be found again.”
George believes one reason Lucan fled
SHOTGUNS
George says: “He had shotguns in was because his friends told him to.
He says: “After he left our house I guess
London – he could have taken his life
there. But I think he made a very he spent the next hour making phone
deliberate decision, not just to die but to calls to anyone of influence.
“That would have included newspaper
disappear. He didn’t want people crowing
proprietors to see if he could get control
over his corpse.
“He didn’t want 38 years of looking over over the situation before he put himself
his shoulder, waiting for some friend to into custody.
“He knew his name would be circulated
give him up. Or hiding in a foxhole with
BOATING
FANATIC
FAMILY
MAN
Lucan being rescued after
his powerboat sank in 1963
Missing peer gazes at his
daughter in the Med in 1973
n HOLS
With son
George in
Portugal,
1974
and there would be a firestorm. So we’re
in a situation where he’s calling his
friends, asking for a soft-landing, and
they’re telling him, ‘You’ve got to go John,
right now you are manna from heaven
for the Press.’
DESTRUCTION
“Dad had no illusions of what he
could expect – the total destruction of
his name and life.”
Despite debate over whether Lucan is
alive or dead, Scotland Yard issued George
and his family with an affidavit in 2005,
confirming they stopped looking for him
six months after he disappeared.
It also says that since then, they haven’t
taken any reported sightings of Lucan
seriously and believe he is dead. George
reveals: “I think the police took the view
that any further expenditure of resources
was pointless as he was likely dead.
“I did have a chat with a police officer
a few years ago. He said to me, ‘Look,
this was 1974. Evidence keeping
wasn’t great.’
“He was quite sensible and said with
this passage of time, we’re never going to
find anything – or him, frankly.”
But while Lucan’s friends, George and
the authorities quickly came to the
conclusion Lucan was dead, others took
longer – in particular Lucan’s mother.
George says: “When you have a reasonably clear-cut suicide case, people at a
distance can work it out. But people close
up who love you and have known you for
years sit there and wait and wait and
refuse to believe.
“That was true of my grandmother. It
took two and half years before she realised her son really wasn’t coming back.
DEAD
“She made some sporadic efforts to
overturn the inquest verdict. She felt if
he did come back he would be easily able
to prove his innocence.
“Most of us thought and took the view
he was dead by about 1985.
“Then by 1992, the insurers and the
courts took that view too. The only ones
left who thought he was alive were the
media. So you can imagine my
frustration that it’s still being suggested
he’s pottering around on a Zimmer
frame in Africa.”
He adds: “This isn’t Sherlock Holmes,
this is joining the dots.
“You’ve got a suicide note in London,
you’ve got a man racing down to
Newhaven, who stops along the way to
get some knock-out pills... then he’s
gone, car found in that port, not seen
for ever more.
“Dad had a strong interest in motorboats. That’s a big arrow and a neon
light sign saying, ‘If you’re going to find
him anywhere, it’s going to be the
bottom of the English Channel’.”
13
20
Daily Mirror
DM1ST
TUESDAY 11.9.2012
DROWNED
PAL SHOCK
By STEPHEN WHITE A TEARFUL teenager told yesterday
how he tried in vain to save his best mate from drowning
after they both jumped into a river to cool off.
Ryan Howard, 16, saw non-swimmer Colin Dodds, also
16, disappear under the water.
He said: “I tried to grab him and I tried to swim towards
him, but I couldn’t get to him. I stretched my arm out,
but I couldn’t reach him. He was too far away.
“He shouted he couldn’t swim and I started panicking.
I told him to kick his legs and
arms as much as he could, but
then I saw his head go under
and it didn’t come back up.
“I got out and ran up to the
bank to get help.
“A man rang for an ambulance. I was in so much shock.
I was crying and shaking.”
The lads – best friends for five
years – were with another mate
Marwan Barq, 16, on Friday J TRIBUTE Colin Dodds
when they jumped into an area of the River Wear at
Bishop Auckland, Co Durham, known as Batts Pool.
Ryan added: “We went in to cool off because it was too
hot. We’d never been up that part of the river before.
“My mum woke me up on Sunday morning to tell me
they had found the body at around 4am. I went and got
some flowers and came back up the river to lay them.”
Hundreds of tributes have been posted online for Colin,
who had just started a painting and decorating course
at Bishop Auckland College.
COMMONS
No debate
on suicide
PRIME Minister David
Cameron yesterday ruled
out a Commons debate on
assisted suicide.
His rejection came after
Care Services Minister
Norman Lamb reignited
the issue, saying there was
a strong case for present
laws to be reconsidered.
The Prime Minister’s
spokesman said: “There
are strong arguments on
both sides of the debate.”
FORUM
Secret stunt
by web Tory
A TORY town hall chief has
been exposed for praising
his own council as “excellent” using a fake name in
an online forum.
A rival slammed Ray
Nottage, 71, for hitting
back at critics of Christchurch council in Dorset
while “hiding” under the
name Doomdodger.
He replied: “It’s supposed
to be anonymous. I should
have the same right.”
EXCLUSIVE:
The lies
about
Daddy
going to
Africa
made
my life
spiral
out of
control
BY
DM1ST
Daily
y Mirror
AGONY OF LUCAN’S SON
TUESDAY
TUESDA
TUE
SDAY
SDA
Y 11.9.2012
11.9
11
1 9.20
.2012
2012
21
ANDREW DAGNELL
mirrornews@mirror.co.uk
LORD Lucan’s son today reveals
how he was pushed to the brink
of a nervous breakdown by the
rumours surrounding his father’s
mysterious disappearance.
George Bingham says his life
spiralled out of control because of the
dramatic gossip.
Now, for the first time, the former
merchant banker sets the record
straight on the speculation about his
father fleeing to Africa.
He also insists the rumours that he
flew to Africa for secret meetings with
Lucan are untrue – and adds he can
prove that today.
The Mirror can also reveal that a new
BBC documentary which is due to
make previously unreported allegations about his dad, is causing fresh
anxiety for George.
He says: “It’s these constant rumours
that have blighted the lives of my
sisters and I. Finally I want everyone
to know the truth.”
George, 45, adds: “So much has been
written and said about my family and
their links to Africa.
“There is absolutely no way my
father went there. If he was going to
flee he wouldn’t have gone to Africa.
“Someone, somewhere would have
tracked him down at some point. The
probability of that not happening is
just so small, especially if he had gone
to Africa. It simply did not happen.”
OUTRAGED
The BBC allegations apparently
include a claim from a Switzerlandbased driver that he drove Lucan
across Europe on the night he went
missing in 1974.
The Beeb screened another
programme this year that included
claims from Shirley Robey, a
secretary who worked for Lucan’s
associate, Lord Aspinall, and who said
she booked tickets for George and his
sisters Frances and Camilla to fly to
Gabon to see their dad.
Half outraged, half amused, George
says: “I have no doubt she booked
tickets to Gabon, and no doubt John
Aspinall told her they were for us.
“But they were not. We never
went, we never saw John Aspinall
in all the years of our childhood
after Daddy disappeared, nor did
we see any of the other rich and
famous people who are mentioned as
being his great friends.
“He was clearly trying to liven up a
rainy day in the miserable 80s with a
little practical joke.”
He continues with a sigh: “I naively
believed as I, and the story, grew older
it would fall away.
“But with the passage of time, it has
become bigger and easier to fabricate
complete nonsense and create lies
around it, with fewer people left alive
3 TORMENT
George now
J TOGETHER George and his father
Frances, 47, and Camilla, 42. George
says: “I had good friends around me
who dragged me out of it and put
me back on kilter. I was blessed
with a lot of very good friends and
two lovely sisters.
“One of them said, ‘Stop this now,
George, because you’ll send yourself
barmy and you’re going to be unbearable to live with’. I did and it became
much easier.”
But despite taking time off, the
pressure of years in investment
banking and the rumours surrounding
his dad were still too much to bear.
George quit his job but more
problems arose as he took two long
trips to Namibia in Africa in 2000 and
2001. Once word got out, there were
rumours George was seeing his dad.
COURAGE
George categorically denies this and
says: “I was worn out by 10 years in
banking, working in a glass box,
drinking coffee all day.
“I went to Namibia because the
desert’s very dry, very cold and it’s
very healthy.
“Friends told me going to Africa
wasn’t a good idea in light of all
the speculation about my father
but I can’t let my dad frame the
rest of my life.
“I’ve never thought Dad was
still alive. But if he were, the last
Lord Lucan leaves a West
place he’d be is in a 99% black
End club in the mid 70s
African country, hanging out in
a three-piece suit. It would make
it very easy to find him.
J CLAIMS Shirley, right, ‘booked Africa flights’
“If he had gone anywhere – which
I don’t believe he did – he would
have gone to somewhere like Austria
or Germany.”
to contradict it. Any person can get a close to a collapse of the mind. So back
After taking a career break, George
grainy, slightly out-of-focus Polaroid from in 1999 I cleared out everything relating six-month sabbatical from his banking
returned to a job in finance and has since
the late 70s, of a man with a moustache to my father I could get my hands on – job but the pressure continued to build
worked in research as well as for chariand say, ‘That’s Lord Lucan’. I can’t prove papers, books and photographs – and after he returned, and he fled to Africa 1999 and meant George finally accepted ties and in the environmental sector.
they’re wrong.”
He is currently on another break from
– only for rumours to swirl he was his father was never coming home.
burnt the lot.
Despite the BBC saying its documenHe says: “I thought, ‘OK, now he’s work, sailing single-handedly from Scot“I dumped them in a supermarket visiting his dad.
taries are rigorously researched, George trolley and took them to a waste site and
But George says that he was just taking legally dead, dead for tax purposes, now land to Africa and learning Arabic on the
says: “It is infuriating if the BBC, which watched as they all went up in flames.
I would like to go and get resolution in way but he is hoping to return soon. He
another much-needed break.
otherwise creates very high quality
has also settled with a new girlfriend.
He adds: “When I was a teenager I my own mind and heart’.”
“It was a moment of catharsis. I think
programming, are prepared to fund that it gave me resolution in my own heart.” forgot about my father.
It has taken him a lot of courage and
But it became too much for George,
level of very low-grade speculation,
“As a young boy, once you’ve got over who was working 18-hour days in a soul-searching before he finally decided
Lucan vanished without trace 38 years
wholly unsupported journalism.
to speak to the Daily Mirror and our sister
ago after the mysterious murder of the it and established your dad’s not coming merchant bank in London at the time.
“We’re not talking about an interview family’s nanny Sandra Rivett, 29.
He says: “That was the moment I went paper the Sunday Mirror.
back, then life just flows.
in England, we’re talking about flying an
But he says he’s pleased – and relieved
“But there comes a time when you get too deeply into everything and let my
DEPRESSION
entire camera crew to so-called witnesses
– to have finally told the world what
older, and you reflect more and more. It life go to pieces.
But it is only now that George, who was gets sadder, this story of a murdered
around Africa.
“Particularly as I tried to understand really happened to his dad.
“This is an extraordinary waste of seven at the time of the killing, feels he nanny and a disappearing father.
George adds: “I hope, once and for all,
what might have happened in that house
can
discuss
the
devastating
personal
toll
licence payers’ money.”
the case is closed.
“It’s blood, and it’s missing people and on that evening.
his
father’s
actions
have
taken.
George’s struggle to come to terms with
“My family and I have nothing to hide.
“It fascinates some people but I promise
it’s ruined families, and you actually start
Lucan was declared officially dead to think ‘How sad’.”
speculation came to a head 13 years ago
you, having been so close to it and having We have been caught up in a media storm
when he burnt everything he owned when George was 32 and it was then the
As Lucan’s only son and heir, it fell to had all the information, all you do is through no fault of our own.
memories began to haunt him.
that related to his dad.
“We want everyone to know what
chase your tail.
George to sort out his dad’s estate.
George says: “That was a difficult
“I badly needed to bury the ghost of
“That was the moment I came close to actually happened.
For years Lucan could not be declared
moment – coming to terms in one’s heart officially dead because in the eyes of the spinning out of control.”
my father,” he confesses.
“What I have told you is the true
“I felt like I couldn’t cope. It’s one that you are never going to see your law there was a chance he was alive.
George took the six months off work version of events. End of story.
father
again.”
thing not knowing if your father is alive
“Now I want to be able to get on with
But in 1992 the High Court ruled the to help him get back into the rhythm of
It left him spiralling into depression earl was dead, allowing executors to everyday life.
or dead, but quite another thing to rise
my life and for the myth surrounding my
each day to hear others claiming they and he says he needed to “take time out finalise the details relating to his estate.
He didn’t turn to therapists, instead father to finally die... just as he did all
have seen him. It was fundamentally of work to clear the decks”. He had a
It was wrapped up seven years later in seeking advice from pals and his sisters that time ago.”
MYSTERY
ARISTO
Anyone can get a grainy, out-of-focus Polaroid from the late
70s, of a man with a moustache and say, ‘That’s Lord Lucan’