Lady Lucan haggles over cash for her home movies

ThE reclusive widow of the 7th Earl of Lucan is so strapped for cash she is trying to flog unseen photographs and home movies of her late husband for £60,000. ‘She needs the money and is selling what is left of the family silver,’ says a friend. Veronica only formally became the Dowager Countess of Lucan earlier this year after a death certificate was finally issued for her husband, enabling their son, George, to inherit the family title.

After going on the run in 1974 following the murder of his children’s nanny at the family’s Belgravia home, the 7th Earl of Lucan left behind a trail of debt. Veronica has been estranged from her three children since George went to live with his aunt and uncle as a teenager.

She lives around the corner from the scene of the murder in rented property.

This summer the Dowager Lady Lucan, 79, right, was in talks with a production company to allow them to broadcast some footage in a forthcoming ITV documentary which is expected to be aired next year.

But it is thought she might have been advised she could get more money on the open market. She has been in discussions with an old friend who has shown an interest in buying the film. I learn he offered £20,000 and she demanded £60,000. Earlier this year, I revealed how she had hired a literary agent in a bid to try to sell her memoirs. Professional gambler Lord ‘ Lucky’ Lucan bludgeoned his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, 29, to death with a length of lead piping in the basement of the family home after apparently mistaking her for his wife. Lady Lucan was injured in the attack and later identified her husband — who had moved out after a series of rows over the custody of their childrewn — as her assailant. After the attack, Lord Lucan drove to a friend’s house in East Sussex in a borrowed car, which was later found abandoned with bloodstains inside. The mystery of his whereabouts provoked decades of speculation.