Lord Lucan’s wife: I hoped we could save our marriage
AS THE Earl of Lucan’s son and heir makes a new High Court bid to take his father’s title, his mother, Veronica, has disclosed she never wanted to divorce the fugitive peer.
Professional gambler Lord ‘Lucky’ Lucan was thought to be trying to kill Veronica when he bludgeoned his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, to death with a lead pipe at the family’s town house i n London’s Belgravia in 1974.
The charismatic peer, who had moved out of the property after his relationship with the Countess of Lucan broke down, was named as the murderer of Rivett, 29, at the inquest into her death. However, Lady Lucan, who was hurt in the attack on Rivett, says she believed their earlier marital problems could have been resolved.
‘My husband and I were never divorced and I still hoped to save our marriage,’ she tells me.
Lady Lucan, 78, who lives near the scene of the murder, is upset by reports referring to her as Veronica Duncan: ‘I relinquished my maiden name when I married in 1963.’
In August, Lady Lucan accused her son, 48-year-old George Bingham, of ‘bartering the accidental privilege of his birth’ by abandoning her and going to live with his aunt and uncle, Bill and Christina Shand-Kydd, when he was a teenager. However, Veronica is i ntrigued by his new l egal
action. George was refused permission to take his father’s title and seat in the House of Lords in 1999, even though his father had been declared legally dead. The refusal was because no death certificate had been issued. Last year’s Presumption of Death Act has given him a new legal avenue.
‘It is interesting that my son is to try action in the High Court in an ef f ort to cl arif y t he unusual situation,’ Veronica says.
Eight years after Lucan disappeared, custody of his children was transferred to Christina, Veronica’s sister, and Bill after Lady Lucan had reportedly become mentally ill.
But she insists: ‘I did not suffer a mental breakdown. Custody of my children was transferred to the Shand- Kydds because my son declared in an affidavit that he would find it much more congenial to live as part of the family of his aunt and uncle.’