Sandra Rivett

Case background and investigation

Sandra Rivett was working as nanny to the three children of the Earl and Countess of Lucan when she was killed on the evening of November 7, 1974, at 46 Lower Belgrave Street in Belgravia, London. According to Wikipedia's account, which draws on books about the case, she was born on September 16, 1945, and died of head injuries inflicted with a blunt instrument. A former Metropolitan Police detective sergeant told the BBC that he found her body in a sack in the basement.

Lady Lucan was attacked in the house the same night. The BBC reports that she was badly beaten but got away and raised the alarm at a nearby pub. She identified her estranged husband, Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, as her attacker, and said he had admitted killing the nanny. The couple had separated in 1972 and Lucan had lost a custody case over the children.

Lucan drove that night to the home of friends in East Sussex in a borrowed Ford Corsair. The car was later found abandoned in Newhaven with bloodstains inside; Wikipedia dates the discovery to November 10. In letters to friends he wrote that he had interrupted a fight at the house and acknowledged that the circumstantial evidence against him was strong, the BBC reported. He has not been reliably seen since, and a warrant for his arrest was issued days after the killing.

In June 1975 an inquest jury returned a verdict naming Lord Lucan as the person who murdered Sandra Rivett. He was never arrested or tried, so the inquest finding has never been tested in a criminal court. His son, George Bingham, has said he believes his father died soon after the events, and has publicly left open the question of guilt.

The High Court declared Lucan dead for probate purposes in 1999. On February 3, 2016, following an application by his son under the Presumption of Death Act, a High Court judge ruled that he was presumed dead and a death certificate was issued, allowing the title to pass. Lady Lucan was found dead at her London home in September 2017; police did not treat her death as suspicious.

Rivett's son, Neil Berriman, who was adopted as a baby and learned of his birth mother's identity as an adult, has spent years investigating the case. His search was the subject of a three-part BBC series, Lucan, first broadcast in November 2024. Numerous reported sightings of Lucan over the decades, in countries including Australia, South Africa and India, have never been verified. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told the BBC in 2024 that the investigation into Sandra Rivett's death remains open and that any significant new information would be considered.