Scotland Yard’s cold case team probes sensational claims Lord Lucan is alive

Cold case detectives are to probe the claim Lord Lucan is alive and living in Australia.

Scotland Yard has asked Neil Berriman, 52, to pass on all the evidence he has collected in his four-year investigation to find the missing killer.

Neil, the son of nanny Sandra Rivett, who Lucan is suspected of murdering in 1974, said: “I’m pleased they are taking it so seriously.”

After his claim was revealed by the Mirror yesterday, the building contractor is now due to meet Det Insp Susan Stansfield, of the major inquiries special casework team at Putney police station in South West London.

Neil said tonight: “I know DI Stansfield is out of the country working on another investigation so I am pleased … she will be meeting me at the first possible opportunity. I am very grateful for the police’s quick response.”

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  Son of Lord Lucan's murdered nanny claims to have found missing Earl alive

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  How killer with connections Lord Lucan 'used friends in high places to get away'

The Mirror revealed yesterday that Neil had spent £30,000 of his own money trying to track down Lucan and claimed to have found the elusive peer living as a Buddhist in Australia.

Neil has already told Det Insp Stansfield about the eight aliases he believes the man has been using. And he has passed on the address where the man is living. Lucan would now be 85.

Scotland Yard said: “The inquiry into the death of Sandra Rivett remains open, as is the case with all unsolved murders.

“It has never been closed. Any significant new information will be considered.”

Lucan disappeared shortly after Sandra was bludgeoned to death.

George Bingham, the son of the peer who has been 8th Earl of Lucan since his father was declared dead in 2016, yesterday said he had been unaware of Neil’s search. The 52-year-old added: “I’ve met him a couple of times but had no idea he was looking for him and had spent so much…

“He isn’t the first person to go to Australia looking. I remember the press went out there to try and find my father and instead found John Stonehouse who had faked his own death.”

He added: “I am very sceptical about this. I had seen the story and it does seem odd. It would not be the first time someone has made a mistake.

“This is all ancient history. It happened in 1974 and now it’s 2020. I guess people will always go on looking and they are welcome to do so.”

He also revealed that on December 30, he and his wife had a baby son Charles, who is in line to become the 9th Earl of Lucan.

The Earl said: “I’ve more important things to worry about such as sleepless nights. My son is not sleeping very well.”

Shortly after the murder, Lucan drove to the home of his friends in East Sussex and wrote a letter to a pal, asking that his children be looked after because he was going to lie low “for a bit”.

‘Spotted’ on a volcano and at ex-Nazi colony

There are a huge number of theories on what became of Lord Lucan and long list of “sightings” – from backpacking on a volcano to living as a hippy in India.

Some believe he boarded a ferry at Newhaven, others think he got on a private jet at Headcorn in Kent to fly across the Channel where he was picked up by a limo.

And one source insisted he had committed suicide and his body was then fed to tigers at the Kent zoo owned by his pal John Aspinall.

Det Chief Supt Roy Ranson, who led the original murder investigation, claimed in his book that he believed Lucan fled to Africa with the help of influential friends. He was convinced that the discovery of Lucan’s car in Newhaven was a red herring.

He also believed Lucan flew to Portugal in a private plane belonging to former Formula One champion Graham Hill, who died in 1975. Later “evidence” suggested that Lucan was in Mozambique in 1975.

The first reported sighting of Lucan was in January 1975 when he was supposedly spotted in Melbourne, Australia.

Five months later he was “seen” in France at Cherbourg and St Malo. Police in South Africa examined fingerprints, supposedly left on a beer glass by Lucan in Cape Town.

Sightings were reported in southern Africa, first in Mozambique and then Zimbabwe, and there were even claims he lived in India as a hippy called “Jungle Barry”.

He was also “spotted”at an ex-Nazi colony in Paraguay, a sheep station in the Australian outback and backpacking on Mt Etna, Sicily.

In 1978, Barbados Police were asked by Scotland Yard to investigate reports that a British resident was sending money to Lord Lucan in South America.

An ITV drama claimed the peer had been spirited away by wealthy friends, including Sir James Goldsmith and Aspinall.

In 2007, the search switched to New Zealand after claims he had been living in a car while, in 2012, his brother Hugh Bingham said he was “sure” Lucan had fled to Africa.

Other theories suggest Lucan was held to ransom by the IRA. BBC South East in 2009 opened up the possibility he disguised himself with surgery. But Lady Lucan said he had admitted killing the nanny by accident.

She insisted he did “the honourable thing” and jumped off a ferry leaving Newhaven

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