Lady Lucan cut her children from will and left fortune to charity
LADY Lucan cut her three children out of her will and left her entire estate, believed to be worth millions, to a homelessness charity.
The wife of runaway peer Lord Lucan killed herself with drink and drugs believing she had Parkinson’s disease, an inquest heard last week.
But she left her fortune, including her luxury Westminster home, to Shelter, her daughter revealed yesterday.
Lady Lucan, 80, severed contact with children Frances, Camilla and George, now 8th Earl of Lucan, in the 1980s. Camilla Bingham QC, who followed the inquest from the public gallery, said: “Mummy left her estate to the homeless charity Shelter.”
The charity said: “The proceeds from Lady Lucan’s estate will help Shelter to continue fighting bad housing and homelessness.”
After Lady Lucan failed to meet a friend in September police found her dead in her home. The Westminster inquest heard she may also have used a plastic bag to suffocate herself.
The family said: “Although Veronica severed relations with her family in the 1980s, and continued to decline contact with them up until her death, all of them remember her lovingly and with admiration.
“She was, in her day, beautiful and throughout life fragile and vulnerable, struggling with mental infirmity.”
Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox said: “Suicide is the conclusion. There’s evidence of intention, with handwritten notes detailing concerns about her health. Although there is no suicide note there are diary entries in which she details these thoughts.”
Her husband, John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared in November 1974 after nanny Sandra Rivett’s body was found at their home in Lower Belgrave Street, London.
Lady Lucan had been beaten severely before managing to raise the alarm at a nearby pub.
Lord Lucan’s bloodsoaked car was later found in Newhaven, East Sussex, and a year later a jury declared he had killed Rivett.
He was declared dead in 1999. And last year Lady Lucan said she believed he had taken his own life.