Lord Lucan’s recluse wife hands family fil to ITV

BEFORE going on the run after the murder of his children’s nanny, the 7th Earl of Lucan was known as such a dashing thrill-seeker that he was considered for the role of James Bond by 007 producer Cubby Broccoli.

Forty-two years later, Lord Lucan will appear on screen for the first time as his reclusive wife, Veronica, is to hand over cine-film to the makers of a fascinating new documentary.

I can disclose that she is in talks with ITV. ‘Veronica is really excited, as it will be an opportunity for her to tell the world for the first time what marriage to Lucan was like and what actually happened on the night of the murder,’ a source tells me.

‘She also wants to put paid to all the ridiculous myths and rumours that have spread. She is mindful that she is getting older.’

Veronica, 79, became the Dowager Lady Lucan earlier this year after a death certificate was issued for her husband, enabling their son, George, to inherit the family title.

She has always refused to co-operate with the stream of authors and film-makers seeking to tell the tale of her husband’s disappearance, but I

revealed back in April that she had secretly written her memoirs. She is now in talks with a publisher.

Professional gambler Lord ‘Lucky’ Lucan bludgeoned his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, 29, to death with a length of lead piping in the basement of the family’s Belgravia townhouse after apparently mistaking her for his wife.

Lady Lucan was injured in the frenzied attack and later identified her husband — who had moved out after a series of increasingly acrimonious rows — as her assailant.

After the attack, Lord Lucan drove to a friend’s house in East Sussex in a borrowed car, which was later found abandoned with bloodstains inside. The mystery of his whereabouts provoked decades of speculation.

The programme, expected to be broadcast next year, will also feature previously unseen photographs from Lady Lucan’s archive.

She has been estranged from her three children since George chose to live with his aunt and uncle, Bill and Christina Shand-Kydd, as a teenager.

ITV made a drama in 2013 about the case, called Lucan, which starred Rory Kinnear as the peer, but neither Veronica nor her children assisted with the production, which claimed that the murderer was not the peer, but a hired assassin.