My attention lingered on a report, “Lord Lucan found by son of nanny he murdered”, in the Mail Online dated 20.1.2020.
The Met Police’s cold case team will speak to the son of the nanny beaten to death by Lord Lucan after his sensational claim he has discovered the fugitive peer living as a Buddhist in Australia…
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Berriman, from West Sussex, says Lucan is housebound and awaiting a major operation after decades living Down Under – and has spoken to the Met who have reassured him they will look into his claims.
He told the Daily Mirror: ‘I believe I have tracked down the man, Lord Lucan, who murdered my mother. He has been alive all this time. Lying about who he is. Lying about it to his new friends…
A spokesman 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. We keep an open mind in relation to this case’.
I have been following this case since a news report appeared in Asian Age dated 9.9.2003. A cutting maintained by me reads:
London: A 30 year mysterious disappearance of a prominent British society figure has been traced to Goa. A new book published on Monday claims that Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, spent his final years there known as “Barry,” a long-haired beachbum who ran jungle trips for visitors.
The co-authors, who include a retired Scotland Yard detective, say they have overwhelming evidence that Lucan did not commit suicide, as friends and family have maintained. Instead, they say, he wound up on the west coast of India where he drank, gambled and astonished the locals with his knowledge of vintage sports cars until his death in 1996.
“Lucky” Lucan has not been seen since November 7, 1974, the day after Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found bludgeoned to death in the basement of a Belgravia house.
Lucan’s wife had raised the alarm at the nearby pub after she too had been attacked. His bloodstained car was parked on the coast at Newhaven.
Dead Lucky authors claim Lucan fled to Mozambique, and from there to Goa. His flight, they say, may have been arranged by the F1 driver Graham Hill, a close friend. Goa was comparatively quiet in the mid-70s making it a good hideout for a fugitive.
According to The Guardian, it was not just Barry’s expert knowledge of Bentleys and Bugattis that aroused suspicion, nor that he was a keen player of backgammon, one of Lucan’s favourite games. The timetable was right, too. Barry had arrived in Goa in 1975, not long after the murder, and claimed to have travelled via Africa.
Always reticent about his private life, he admitted to coming from Ireland, home to the Lucan estates, and, once asked about his knowledge of history, boasted: “I’m part of history”.
Goanese also said British visitors would bring him wads of cash from time to time. There was also a strong physical resemblance. Both men had distinctive arched, black eyebrows, and neither had earlobes.
“Barry” was given a Viking-style cremation after his death, leaving no trace of DNA, but Duncan MacLaughlin, co-author and former detective believes that forensic analysis of photographs by Susan Black at Dundee University goes a long way towards proving his point. Prof Black, he said, was unable to disprove the connection.
“I went to India very skeptical” said Duncan MacLaughlin, co-author and former Metropolitan police detective. “But during my five weeks there I became convinced that, yes, this is him.”
Fellow author William Hall said: “This book is about trying to establish beyond reasonable doubt that this was Lord Lucan. We are claiming we have overwhelming evidence.” But Lady Lucan rejects the claims saying she was “absolutely certain” the earl had killed himself.
This book was soon debunked with Gideon Long reporting from London:
London: One of Britain’s most captivating murder mysteries looked set to endure a while longer on Tuesday after it emerged that a man suspected of being fugitive aristocrat Lord Lucan was, in fact, an itinerant folk musician called Barry. Extracts of Mac Laughlin’s book were published in the ‘Sunday Telegraph’ newspaper, prompting many to believe that the 30-yr-old mystery of Lucan’s disappearance had finally been solved. But Lucan’s wife Veronica dismissed MacLaughlin’s claims as “unutterably boring” and on Tuesday, Halpin’s friends came forward to defend his honour.
“To think that anybody could mistake my old pal Barry Halpin for Lord Lucan,” one of Britain’s best-known folk singers Mike Harding wrote in a letter to the ‘Guardian’ newspaper. “To think he has been mistaken for that murderous Hooray Henry!” Harding described Halpin as “a musician, storyteller and Good Time Charlie of the 1960s folk revival.”
There is a knock on my door, a few days after I had read the report in Mail Online. I open it and my fellow villager and friend of long standing Maclean Dourado walks in with a younger man who needs some legal advice. He is introduced as his elder brother’s son based in Kuwait. As they leave the young man provides his rather unusual name for a Goan which arouses my interest. Days later, Maclean an organic farmer was back at my house as he often does, with a bunch of fresh vegetables. “Tell me, I say to him, how did your nephew get his name?”
His response in summary is:
“There was this man we called Hippy Joe who lived with a large group of hippies on the beach side all those years ago. Hippy Joe was a quiet man who struck a friendship with me and my brother. He liked to drink ‘urak’ and cashew feni which I often purchased for him from Verna. He would often come over to my house. He was tall with dark long hair and a long beard. Most of the time, he wore sunglasses and a hat. After a year or so, he left Goa. His parting words to us were whichever of you has a son first, name him Lucan. He never came back. And that’s how Peter’s son came to be named Lucan”. Now can anyone tell me who was Hippy Joe?
(Radharao F. Gracias is a senior Trial Court Advocate and a former Independent MLA)
