Woman with key to bogus lord’s lies
THIS is the woman who could unlock the sinister secret past of the bogus aristocrat who stole a dead baby’s identity.
Swiss nurse Anita Keller is the girlfriend of the conman who for 22 years falsely used the name Christopher Buckingham – and the title Lord Buckingham – before being jailed for deception earlier this week.
She has permission to open a bank deposit box in Zurich which the fraudster claims contains documents that reveal his true identity. But to the chagrin of British police she has refused to exercise this right.
In a fraud mimicking the plot of The Day of the Jackal, Buckingham stole his name in 1983 from the birth certificate of a baby who had died aged eight months. He used it to obtain a national insurance number and passport. He married and passed on the name to his two children.
Even with the threat of prison he refused to reveal his true identity, prompting speculation that he may have been a killer in his past.
He has told officers that papers revealing the truth are sitting in a bank deposit box in Zurich – together with a gun – which can only be opened by pressing his thumb against a security device.
Strict Swiss privacy laws have thwarted efforts by British police to have the box opened. Miss Keller has been given legal permission by Buckingham to open it, but has rejected requests from detectives to do so.
Buckingham told police he met Miss Keller after he was involved in a near-fatal car accident at a French motorway toll in 2001. He was on his way to Zurich, where he had moved from his home in Northampton after splitting from his wife.
He spent six months recovering in France before being transferred to a Zurich hospital where Miss Keller worked. After she nursed him back to health, the couple shared an apartment in the city. Their life together ended when Buckingham’s ruse was exposed during a passport inspection in January.
He confessed to his deception and was jailed for 21 months at Canterbury Crown Court. But Miss Keller still refuses to accept he lied to her.