New Lady Lucan dismisses evidence 7th Earl killed nanny
EVIDENCE that Lord Lucan murdered his children’s nanny before disappearing is weak, the new Lady Lucan said, as she disclosed the family is trying to make a fresh start away from the notorious mystery.
Anne-sofie Foghsgaard, the eighth Countess of Lucan, said she wanted to rebrand the family which remains overshadowed by the 1974 crime.
Lady Lucan, who married George Bingham, the only son of “Lucky Lucan” the seventh Earl, said the missing aristocrat’s children “adored him” and had never accepted his guilt.
Richard John Bingham disappeared without trace on Nov 7 1974, after the family’s nanny Sandra Rivett was beaten to death at his Belgravia home.
His estranged wife was also attacked, but managed to escape, and she named her husband as her assailant.
An inquest jury later declared the peer had killed Ms Rivett.
The Earl was alleged to have killed her when he mistook her for his estranged wife in the darkness of their basement. He then attacked his wife when she came to see where Ms Rivett had got to.
The Earl was never seen again and his whereabouts have excited decades of speculation. He was officially de- clared dead in 2016, allowing his son George to inherit his title.
The new Lady Lucan said the evidence against the seventh Earl was “all circumstantial”.
She told The Mail on Sunday: “It seems to me all the evidence is weak.”
She said: “Those were very, very dark times for George and like any of us, he doesn’t like to dwell on dark times.
“He was a very small boy and adored his father, mother and nanny. He lost them all. The children remember their father as being funny, warm and kind. It’s not nice when everyone thinks something different from the truth, the children know that their friends and family support them.”