In her first interview, Danish heiress says she’s determined to lay ghosts of family’s ‘dark days’ to rest
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IT IS a name tainted by murder and scandal. But astonishingly, the new Lady Lucan says the evidence that her late father-in-law, Lord Lucan, killed the family nanny is ‘weak’ and that she ‘doesn’t care’. In her first ever interview, outspoken Danish heiress AnneSofie Foghsgaard – the 8th Countess of Lucan – tells The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine today: ‘ It’s time for everyone to move on. It’s a new era.’
The woman who married George Bingham, only son of ‘Lucky’ Lucan – the 7th Earl who was accused of the brutal murder of nanny Sandra Rivett in 1974 – wants to ‘rebrand’ the family name. The news follows the death a fortnight ago of the mother-in-law she never met, the troubled and tragic Veronica, the Dowager Countess of Lucan.
Anne-Sofie, 39, speaks of the bitter legacy that tore her husband’s family apart and reveals:
The devastating feud between Veronica and her children that endured until her death;
The 7th Earl’s children ‘adored him’ and never accepted his guilt;.
George Bingham, 50, now the holder of the title, is ‘the love of my life’ and their relationship survived an earlier break-up.
Richard John Bingham was a dashing gambler in the middle of a divorce and toxic custody battle with his wife when he became the target of Scotland Yard’s most infamous manhunt in November 1974.
Miss Rivett was found bludgeoned to death in the Lucans’ Belgravia home. Veronica – believed to be the main target – was also injured. She named her husband as the assailant.
The next day, Lucan’s blood-stained car was found abandoned at Newhaven, Sussex. The following year, an inquest jury named Lucan as the prime suspect in Miss Rivett’s murder. Since then there has never been a confirmed sighting of him and in 1999 he was officially declared dead.
George legally became the 8th Earl, and the daughter he had ten months ago with Anne-Sofie has the title Lady Daphne.
Anne-Sofie says she knew nothing of the dark past of the Lucan family when she met financial consultant George a decade ago at a party. ‘I can’t remember the moment when I did come to know. George is the love