Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Is he Lording it up Down Under
COLD case detectives are to probe the claim Lord Lucan is alive and living in Australia.
Scotland Yard has asked Neil Berriman, 52, to pass on all the evidence he has collected in his fouryear investigation to find the missing killer.
Neil, the son of nanny Sandra Rivett, who Lucan is suspected of murdering in 1974, said: “I’m pleased they are taking it so seriously.”
After his claim was revealed by the Mirror yesterday, the building contractor is now due to meet Det Insp Susan Stansfield, of the major inquiries special casework team at Putney police station in South West London.
Neil said last night: “I know DI Stansfield is out of the country working on another investigation so I am pleased ... she will be meeting me at the first possible opportunity. I am very grateful for the police’s quick response.”
The Mirror revealed yesterday that Neil had spent £30,000 of his own money trying to track down Lucan and claimed to have found the elusive peer living as a Buddhist in Australia.
Neil has already told Det Insp Stansfield about the eight aliases he believes the man has been using. And he has passed on the address where the man is living. Lucan would now be 85.
Scotland Yard said: “The inquiry into the death of Sandra Rivett remains open, as is the case with all unsolved murders. It has never been closed. Any new information will be considered.”
RIDDLE
Lucan disappeared shortly after Sandra was bludgeoned to death.
George Bingham, the son of the peer who has been 8th Earl of Lucan since his father was declared dead in 2016, yesterday said he had been unaware of Neil’s search. The 52-year-old added: “I’ve met him a couple of times but had no idea he was looking for him and had spent so much...
“He isn’t the first person to go to Australia looking. I remember the press went out there to try and find my father and instead found John Stonehouse who had faked his own death.”
He added: “I am very sceptical about this. I had seen the story and it does seem odd. It would not be the first time someone has made a mistake.
“This is all ancient history. It happened in 1974 and now it’s 2020. I guess people will always go on looking and they are welcome to do so.”
He also revealed that on December 30, he and his wife had a baby son Charles, who is in line to become the 9th Earl of Lucan.
The Earl said: “I’ve more important things to worry about such as sleepless nights. My son is not sleeping very well.”
After the murder, Lucan drove to the home of his friends in East Sussex and wrote a letter to a pal, asking his children be looked after because he was going to lie low “for
a bit”.
WHEN Neil Berriman finally held the faded envelope containing the key to his identity, he nearly threw it on to the fire unopened.
The mystery contents might ruin his life for ever. And, as he lit a fire at home on a freezing February day, he decided that whatever the secret was, it should be consigned to the flames.
But something stopped him. He opened that envelope and found himself plunged into an even bigger mystery – one that has taken him across the world in search of Lord Lucan.
Because the documents painstakingly collected by his adoptive mother Audrey revealed that Neil was the son of Sandra Rivett, the nanny believed to have been killed by Lord Lucan before he vanished in 1974.
Neil said: “My life changed for ever. When I realised who I was, I felt shocked, shattered, I felt sad. But I had no idea what lay ahead.”
He had been putting off that terrible moment of truth since he was first told about the envelope five years earlier.
Neil, now 52, always knew he was adopted shortly after birth by loving parents Audrey and Ivan Berriman, but felt no urge to know who his birth mother was while his adoptive mum was still alive. But in 2003, Audrey fell ill and decided it was time to help him discover his past.
Neil said: “One day, about a year before my mum died, she rang me up and said, ‘I have an envelope I want to give to you.’ Now when I look back I think she knew she was dying and she wanted me to know something important. She thought that I might want some answers.”
Yet still Neil held back. He said: “To be honest, I really didn’t want to know. I had always thought that when my both parents had died I would try and find out who my birth mother, and my biological father, were. But I had absolutely no intention of doing it when she was alive because I never would have wanted to upset her.
“She never actually gave me the envelope but I was aware it existed.”
Yet even after Audrey died in 2004, Neil did not go in search of the envelope for four more years.
However, it continued to prey on his mind until in 2008 he decided to find it.
Close to tears as he recalled his mum, he said: “It was four years later and I decided I should really go and look for that envelope. My dad was still alive and I waited for him to go out because, again, I didn’t want to upset him in any way.
“The envelope was at their house. I had never seen it. I went in to look for it and I found it hidden under some of my late mum’s clothes, which were still in her bedside unit.
“I picked it up and took it back to my home. I lit a fire because it was a cold day – I can