Peer’s son George Bingham applied for certificate under Presumption of Death Act to inherit father’s title as earl of Lucan

More than 40 years after Lord Lucan disappeared from a blood-soaked London crime scene, the high court has finally cleared the way for his only son to inherit the earldom.

A presumption of death certificate was granted by Mrs Justice Asplin on Wednesday following a hearing that lasted less than an hour. George Bingham, 48, can now assume the family title as the eighth earl of Lucan.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lord Lucan, who disappeared after Sandra Rivett, the family’s nanny, was found murdered in central London in November 1974. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

His father, Lord Lucan, vanished after Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found bludgeoned to death with a length of lead piping at the family home in Belgravia, central London, on 7 November 1974.

The attacker also turned on Bingham’s mother, Lady Lucan, beating her severely before she managed to escape and raise the alarm. Lord Lucan’s car was later found abandoned and blood-stained in Newhaven, East Sussex. An inquest jury a year later named him as the murderer.

Our fascination with Lord Lucan never fades – but who was he? Read more

The hearing at the Rolls Building in central London had been scheduled to last three days but Neil Berriman, Rivett’s son, withdrew his objections to a death certificate being issued under the 2014 Presumption of Death Act.

The judge made the declaration on the basis that she was satisfied Lucan had not been known to be alive for a period of at least seven years. The death certificate can be revoked if the peer, who would now be aged 81, reappears.

The hearing was told that police had confirmed there were no live lines of inquiry into Rivett’s murder, although the case had not been closed.



The ruling is unlikely to halt the proliferation of conspiracy theories. Berriman told the court he had seen an internal Metropolitan police document from 2002 which stated that officers believed the missing earl was still alive at that date.

“I would be very grateful if we all moved on and found another Loch Ness monster out there,” Bingham pleaded with reporters outside the court.



Accompanied by his wife, Anne-Sofie, the daughter of a Danish multi-millionaire, Bingham said: “Our family has no idea how our own father, my father, met his own end and whether he did so at his own hand or the hand of others on that fateful evening. It is a mystery, and it may well remain that way forever.



“I would ask, with a very quiet voice, for everyone to consider a person did die here in terrible circumstances, and a family lost a father … As a British person, I still prefer to consider a person innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. To some extent it has been a bit of a jaunt, at other times it has been very difficult.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sandra Rivett. Photograph: Topham Picturepoint

Bingham thanked Berriman for his efforts to “secure justice for his mother and our beloved family nanny”. He added: “We have heard the most extraordinary tales over the past 41 years. I got married this year. It was a nice moment to say farewell to a very dark past and move on. My own personal view is that he has definitely been dead since [his disappearance in 1974].”

He said the events of the night when Rivett was killed at the Lucan family home in London “may well have pushed a man to end his own life”.



Berriman, who works as a builder and is the same age as Bingham, read out a prepared statement outside court in which he vowed to continue investigating his mother’s death.

“I feel that Mr Bingham and myself have a great deal in common,” he said. “I would sooner try and work with the family rather than against them.”

Berriman accused unnamed individuals of “withholding evidence and not telling the truth”. He added: “This will not go away.”

He highlighted concerns about “blood contamination” at the scene of the crime but did not reveal how that might affect the case. “Maybe the police know more about this than they have ever let on.”

He added: “I do feel and hope that the Lucan mystery will be at a possible end in 12 to 14 months time through new evidence and lines of inquiry … There is no getting away from the fact that whatever happened that night he [Lucan] is guilty of something in my eyes.”



Berriman said he believed Lord Lucan escaped justice in 1974 but had died within the past 15 years, probably in Africa.



The eight earl of Lucan cannot sit in the House of Lords at present. The title was one of those excluded when membership of the upper house was reformed in 1999. He will, however, be eligible to join the ranks of those aristocrats who can be elected to replace peers who have died or retired.

