LADY LUCAN: THE TRUTH
She’s guarded her secrets for 40 years. Now the wife at the heart of Britain’s most gripping murder mystery tells all in an electrifying book . . .
As MY daughter and I sprawled on my bed that fateful Thursday — November 7, 1974 — watching Mastermind, the nanny put her head round the door. It was 8.55 pm. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asked sandra Rivett. Actually, yes — what a kind thought. sandra didn’t usually offer to make me cups of tea, but I thought she may have been trying to thank me for letting her change her usual day off — Thursday — to Wednesday so she could see her boyfriend.
The news came on. Then, at about 9.15, I remarked to my daughter Frances that I wondered why sandra was taking so long.
Time to investigate. I left the bedroom, leaving the door open to give me a little light as the bulb on the landing had burnt out. When I got to the ground floor, I peered down the stairs leading to the kitchen in the basement.
strange — the light wasn’t on. I called sandra’s name.
suddenly, I heard the sound of someone coming out of the ground-floor cloakroom. Must be sandra.
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!’ LIFE isn’t always easy when you’re married to a professional gambler, who can be in the money one minute and plunged into debt the next. But John and I had periods of happiness, and produced three children — Frances, George and Camilla — who went to good private schools in London.
so why did my husband — known to the world as Lord Lucan — want to kill me?
In a way, that question is unanswerable. At the time, we were living apart, but I’d never given up hope that he would one day come back to me.
TOuNDERsTAND how badly our relationship had deteriorated, we need to go back to 1972 — nearly two years before that terrible night in the basement of our family home in Belgravia.
At the time, I was emerging from a period of depression, for which I’d been given the super-strong drugs of the time, including a few that are now banned. The side- effects were appalling, and I was constantly coming off one prescription drug to try another.
My relationship with John was at a new low — he was savagely unpleasant when he wasn’t ignoring me. I began to worry that he was plotting to have me locked up in a loony bin.
Was I paranoid? Not at all, as it turned out. Even my solicitor, however, was surprised when I asked him about the law on committal to lunatic asylums. There was no way Lord Lucan could be thinking of having me committed, he protested — ‘ He took you out to dinner last night!’
But to keep me happy, the solicitor took out a ‘ one- day stay’ against having me committed — which would enable me to get help if it ever happened. And just as well: without my knowledge, my husband tried to persuade my doctor to have me locked up — but abandoned his attempt when told that all concerned would be dragged in front of a tribunal.
At this point, John started persecuting me in niggly ways — like hiding my handbag and telling me he was ‘displeased’ with me. I’d often lose my temper, yet we continued to have a normal sex life.
The last time we made love was on January 2, 1973, the day that I asked him for some money — because I felt that it would be a good deal safer in my name than in his. He didn’t quarrel with this; just said that if I behaved myself for a few months, he’d review the situation.
Five days later, I told him I needed to talk to him about something — I forget what. He refused to listen, so I stalked him around the house. Finally, I got so exasperated that I goosed him — which I’d often done before, sometimes as a prelude to intercourse.
This time, however, he knocked me down with one sweep of his hand. I jumped to my feet and said I was going to call the police — which I only pretended to do. Meanwhile, John had rung one of our doctors, who arrived shortly afterwards. My husband had just one question for Dr Powell Brett: was I fit to look after the children?
I looked pleadingly at the doctor, who just said: ‘Yes.’ At that, my husband rushed up the stairs, packed two canvas bags and dashed out of the house. We were never to live together again.
John was now permanently based at a mews house we’d bought nearby. But he’d often follow me in his car for a short distance when I took George and Camilla to and from school. On my return, I’d often have the feeling that he’d been in the house. The breakfast things, which had been stacked on the draining board, would be back on the table. The refrigerator would defrost of its own accord, leaving water all over the floor.
Other things simply disappeared. I grew rather alarmed. Then on
My husband thrust his fingers down my throat, then tried to gouge out my eyes. I gasped: Please don’t kill me
February 13, 1973, he said he was going to stay with the financier Jimmy Goldsmith in Mexico — but he wouldn’t tell me for how long or even give me an address.
He was back just over a month later, and came to see the children — then aged two, five and eight. And he couldn’t stop grinning, which made me think he had some- thing up his sleeve. All hell broke loose the following Friday. The nanny had taken the children out for a walk in Green Park, and was on her way back when my husband pulled up beside her in his car.
He was quickly joined by two other men, and the children were told to get in. After she’d told me this story, I screamed and dialled 999. But there was little I could do: John had obtained a court order to ‘rescue’ the children from me. Not only that, but he’d secretly taken the children’s clothes and toys while I’d been out.
I was distraught and horrified — particularly when I read the testimony John had gathered from various people, including my mother-in-law, whom I rarely saw, and an embittered nanny who’d been dismissed.
The basis of the case, my solicitor explained, was that I was seriously mentally disturbed and my husband feared for the safety of the children.
‘He’s mad!’ I exclaimed. My solicitor smiled and said: ‘Yes, he is.’
And so the fight-back began. On March 27, the Official Solicitor came to take a statement from me and look over the house, which was all in good order.
I told him that John had instigated a long-standing campaign to try to prove that I was mentally unbalanced. Yet it was me who made all the arrangements for the children’s education and took them to and from school.
Plus, I pointed out that he’d gone away to Mexico, leaving me in sole charge of the children, and they’d come to no harm.
The nanny backed me up, saying that I was perfectly capable of carrying out the duties of a mother and ran a well-ordered household. My younger sister also gave a statement, saying I was completely devoted to the children. ‘They are her whole life,’ she added.
Against this, the court had my husband’s wild allegations that I was psychotic, and his mother’s testimony that she’d seen me the previous December and been shocked by my extreme unhappiness and loneliness.
BuT
the wheels of justice grind slowly. For several months, I was only permitted to see my children twice a week for four hours a day, in the presence of two nannies — mine and the one John had hired.
It was one of the most appalling experiences I’ve ever been through. I could see that Camilla was already forgetting me, Frances was showing signs of distress and George just seemed to watch TV all the time.
Meanwhile, my precious time with the children was punctuated by John ringing his nanny to ask if ‘everything was all right’.
When the weather grew warmer, I took Camilla for walks in her pushchair, accompanied by my two wardresses. It was ghastly having to be followed around — I could barely believe my predicament.
As the custody case approached, my husband took to lurking in his car outside the house, and shouting at me: ‘Don’t defend — there will be a lot of mud-slinging!’
I’d go up to the car and plead with him to drop the case, saying I’d have any treatment he wanted. But he’d just drive away.
One weekend, I was invited to stay with my sister and her wealthy husband, Bill Shand Kydd. His unkindness still shocks me.
I’d told them what had happened and mentioned that John used to beat me. ‘Well you are a bit peculiar — and I’d have beaten you if you’d been my wife,’ said Shand Kydd.
When I became upset, he rang a doctor at a mental hospital, who advised me to stay there for a week. As I was terribly lonely and depressed by this stage, I agreed.
Once more, I was given powerful prescription drugs, including one that left me in a daze, staggering about the hospital. But a consultant psychiatrist could find no signs of psychosis — so I was released.
The custody hearing took place that June — nearly three months after John had kidnapped the children.
At one point, he clenched his fist and shook it threateningly at my lawyer, saying: ‘You’re doing a very serious thing, coming between me and my children!’
But he lost. One of the clinchers, apparently, was that he’d been happy to fly off on holiday to Mexico, leaving the children with his ‘psychotic’ wife.
I have an abiding memory of John sitting on a bench, with his head in his hands. Even then, I had to fight an urge to ask him to consider a reconciliation.
Did his attitude ever soften towards me?
Well, he never asked for a divorce. And in August that year, when he was allowed to take the children to Portugal, he sent me the only letter I’ve ever had from him, offering to fund a holiday for me.
At the same time, he was very bitter. Once, when I visited him, he told me I’d ruined the family and had destroyed his masculinity.
In October, he invited me to have lunch with him at the Mirabelle restaurant. I came straight to the point, asking him to come back to me, after a decent interval.
‘I did love you once,’ he said sadly.
I replied: ‘If you loved me once, then you still do’ — but he said nothing. And after driving me home, he kissed me gently on the
cheek for the last time. A few minutes after he’d gone, I went down the street to buy some cigarettes. He was still on the pavement. His face was sad and I knew that he regretted the whole thing as much as I did.
By the following month, however, there was a very cold wind blowing in my direction.
Although I didn’t know it then, my husband had started spreading malign rumours about me to anyone who’d listen. One story had it that he’d bought a kitten for the children from Harrods, and shortly after he gave it to them, it was killed. Then its remains had been pushed through his letter box. All 100 per cent untrue. Meanwhile, John had set private detectives on me, to watch my every move. But as these were exceedingly predictable and dull, he’d called them off after a few months.
The days dragged by. In July 1974, I saw John at Frances’s school sports day. Camilla sat between us and put both her arms around us.
At Frances’s second sports day, soon afterwards, he congratulated me on winning the mothers’ race and gave me a cigarette. I could see his hands were trembling.
Then, on July 18, I asked him to drive me to George’s sports day. I was chatting away in the car, but he made very few replies. Still, he seemed in a friendly enough mood.
We decided to sit on some chairs on a raised piece of concrete, but he knocked one of them to the ground. Then, to my astonishment, he did it again. I had the feeling he was slightly drunk.
He smiled at me from time to time, and introduced me as his wife to some hearty women who rushed up to say ‘Hullo, John’ in loud and braying voices. Then he drove me back. This was the last time we were to be anywhere together .
Back home, I was feeling slightly better as I’d finally found a very good nanny. Sandra Rivett was well turned-out, with beautiful thick red hair.
At her interview, we’d talked for hours. She’d told me about her husband, a merchant seaman, who’d left her in 1972, and how she wanted to try to keep the marital flat.
I liked her at once. She seemed kind and decent and got on extremely well with Frances, who often disliked her nannies.
Sandra said she had been one of three daughters, and then her mother had produced a boy late in life. In fact, he was Sandra’s own child, who’d been adopted by her parents. Three years later, she gave birth to a second son, who was given up for adoption.
Her own childhood had been tough: when she was 16, her father had taken against her and tried to have her committed to an asylum. Well, I knew how that felt.
One
day, she helped me polish the silver for a dinner party I was giving, and the next morning I found that she’d kindly done all the washing-up — which wasn’t part of her job. And, on weekends when John had access, she’d always ring me from her flat to check I was OK.
even my husband appeared to approve of her — though she found it disconcerting when he followed her back from George’s school one day in his dark-blue Mercedes.
On another day, I was equally disconcerted to see John’s car in my rear-view mirror as I was driving home with Camilla from a children’s party. I stopped and waved, but he drove off round a corner.
On October 24, 1974, which was Frances’s tenth birthday, I looked out of the window and saw my husband sitting in his Mercedes outside. I just had time to notice he was wearing dark glasses before he drove away.
A friend came that day to help organise Frances’s birthday party. Seeing me with Sandra, she remarked that we were the same height and build. I thought no more of it at the time, but had cause to remember her words.
Then came that fatal Thursday — november 7 — which would normally have been Sandra’s day off, and my desperate struggle with my husband at the top of the basement stairs.
After he’d tried to gouge out my eyes, we both fell into the basement doorway. He tried to push me down the stairs, but I managed to hook one of my legs around the balustrade. This gave me enough purchase to claw at his genitals.
He moved abruptly backward, and I ended up sitting sideways between his legs.
Putting my hand down, I found myself touching a curved metal object wrapped in bandaging, and also what seemed like a great deal of my own hair.
I remember looking at the front door — and realising I’d never make it. ‘I’m 37, too young to die,’ I thought.
Trying to calm myself, I asked John if I could have a drink of water because my throat hurt so much — the result of him thrusting three fingers down it.
We went into the downstairs cloakroom and I had a drink. The water was hot. I didn’t scream or shout for help.
At one point, he grabbed at my sapphire and pearl necklace. ‘What are you doing with my necklace?’ I said very sharply, and he stopped.
I asked him where Sandra was, wondering briefly if she could possibly be in cahoots with him. He said she’d gone out. I said that she wouldn’t have gone out without telling me.
It was then that he said: ‘She is dead — don’t look.’
Instinctively, I felt my best chance was to play along with him. ‘Oh dear, what shall we do with the body?’ I asked.
I then told him that Sandra had few friends who’d make any inquiries about her, and that I could easily stay in the house until my wounds had healed.
‘Why didn’t you come back?’ I asked him, bringing the subject round to the reconciliation that never happened.
‘no, Veronica,’ he replied. ‘That can never be now.’
He told me that he’d received a letter from my solicitor, asking for his financial proposals, as we would have been separated for two years the following January. This had, apparently, been a motivating factor for his lunatic attack.
‘I’ll go to Broadmoor for this,’ he said. Then he asked me if I had any sleeping tablets. I said I did, in the bedroom.
He said that he had to make a decision, and asked if I’d take the tablets. I said that I would.
‘We must go away together,’ he said. He hustled me up the stairs, where Frances was still watching TV, and sent her to her bedroom.
I said that I felt ill, and lay on the bed. Then I got up and we went into the bathroom together to look at my injuries.
My face was streaked with blood, so it wasn’t possible to see how much damage had been done.
After that, he put a towel on my pillow and I lay down again. Finally, he went back into the bathroom to get a cloth to clean up my face.
As I heard the taps running, I realised that he wouldn’t be able to hear properly what was going on in the bedroom. It was my last chance.
I jumped to my feet and ran down the stairs, out of the front door, as fast as I could to the Plumbers Arms, a pub about 30 yards from the house.
I burst in at 9.50 pm, crying: ‘Help me, help me, help me! I’ve just escaped being murdered. He’s in the house!’
The customers at the bar were in varying stages of inebriation; they gazed at me stupefied. So I added: ‘He’s murdered my nanny.’
The head barman dialled 999 and an ambulance took me to St George’s hospital for my head wounds to be sutured. I remained there for about a week.
I often wonder how my husband managed to keep calm when he realised that I’d fled. We know from Frances that he went upstairs and called: ‘Veronica, where are you?’
When there was no response, he drove — in a car borrowed from his friend Michael Stoop — to Chester Square, and tried without success to rouse the mother of one of Frances’s school friends, almost certainly to ask her to go to the children.
Then he called his mother, telling her that there’d been a ‘terrible catastrophe at number 46’ and asking her to get the children out and ring Bill Shand Kydd, ‘who would help’.
After sponging his blood-stained flannels, he drove to Uckfield in Sussex — without his passport — to see his friends Ian and Susan Maxwell-Scott. Only Susan, who’d always fancied him, was at home.
She let him in and listened to his version of events. He’d been walking past the house, he said, when he saw through the venetian blinds that a ‘large’ man was attacking his wife.
SO
He’d used his key and interrupted the fight, and the man had run off. His wife had then told him the nanny was dead and accused him of hiring the killer.
My husband said he was innocent, but feared that the circumstantial evidence against him was very strong. Susan gave him four Valium tablets and some writing paper.
One of the letters he wrote was to Bill Shand Kydd, repeating his tale and adding: ‘I will lie doggo for a bit, but I am only concerned for the children. If you can manage it I want them to live with you . . . V. has demonstrated her hatred for me in the past and would do anything to see me accused.’
He refused Susan’s offer to stay the night, saying he had to get back to sort things out. And then he left her house at 1.15 am, never to be seen again.
I’m sure he would have parked his car and taken the Valium. And when he awoke, he must have decided his position was hopeless. The last letter he wrote then — to the car owner Michael Stoop — differed from the rest in using the past tense. ‘The fact that a crooked solicitor and a rotten psychiatrist destroyed me between them will be of no importance to the children,’ he wrote.
He added: ‘ When you come across my children, which I hope you will, please tell them that you knew me and that all I cared about was them.’
It was clear that he didn’t anticipate seeing either our children or Michael Stoop again. The letter was, in effect, his suicide note.
Apart from that, all we really know is that John’s borrowed car was spotted at newhaven the next day and recovered by the police. I believe that he boarded a ferry and jumped off mid-Channel.
He’d always had an affinity with the sea; as a young man, he’d owned powerboats and been obsessed with their propellers. So I think it’s likely he calculated his jump so that his body would be minced by the ferry’s propellers.
At the inquest for poor Sandra Rivett, a lawyer tried to make out that I was suffering from paranoia. I wasn’t.
Sandra had been beaten to death with the same piece of lead piping, wrapped round with a strip of surgical plaster, that John used on me. Another section of the pipe was found in his abandoned car.
Furthermore, detectives proved conclusively that he couldn’t have seen anything through the windows of the basement — even a large man attacking a woman.
I will eternally regret that an innocent woman died because of my relationship with my husband.
Some months before Sandra’s murder, John had a chilling conversation with his gambling friend, Greville Howard, in which he talked of getting rid of me and dumping my body in the Solent. As Greville later told the police, he thought these were merely drunken ramblings.
John was apparently worried that our children might one day see him in court as a bankrupt.
Greville pointed out that it would be far worse for the children to see their father in court accused of murder. My husband replied: ‘But I wouldn’t get caught.’
Adapted from a Moment In time by the Countess of Lucan, to be published later this year © 7th Countess of Lucan 2017.
‘He was plotting to have me locked in a loony bin’