Who’d want this label on them? Murdered nanny’s son hits out at Lucan fashion range
LORD Lucan’s son has been criticised for launching a fashion label that uses his missing father’s title – by the son of the nanny whom the peer is suspected of murdering.
George Bingham – the 8th Earl of Lucan – and wife Anne-Sofie have set up Lucan Fashion, which says it sells ‘city and country clothing with a twist’.
But Sandra Rivett’s son Neil Berriman said the title was ‘tainted’ and naming a clothing range after Lord Lucan was ‘sick’.
John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, famously went missing in November 1974 after his children’s nanny Mrs Rivett was bludgeoned to death and the peer’s estranged wife was attacked.
Lady Lucan identified her husband as her attacker and an inquest later ruled that he was probably Mrs Rivett’s killer.
The shooting wear range, which is modelled by the 40-year-old countess, known as Fie, includes an £895 Donegal tweed Norfolk jacket, a £1,200 Castlebar women’s coat and a £795 cape. Mr Berriman, 50, said: ‘I don’t know why anyone would want to have this label on them.’
The builder, of Hampshire, believes his mother was killed by a hitman hired by the peer.
Hours after Lord Lucan fled the house in Belgravia, central London, his blood-stained car was found in Newhaven, Sussex.
In the years since there have been hundreds of reported sightings of him, but none has ever been substantiated. In 1999, the High Court declared Lord Lucan dead so his family could take control of his estate, but did not issue a death certificate, meaning the peer’s son, 50, could not take over the earldom. However, in 2016 the High Court ruled the peer should be presumed dead. After that judgment the new Earl of Lucan said he suspected his father had taken his own life. The missing peer’s widow Veronica, who died last year, believed her husband had killed himself. Last week Scotland Yard said the peer remained a suspect over the killing and insisted there was no ‘evidential or tangible proof’ for his death.