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Lord Lucan hired an assassin to murder his wife but the hitman killed their nanny instead, her son said today.
The Earl disappeared after nanny Sandra Rivett was found dead at his home in London on November 7, 1974.
Lord Lucan, whose blood-stained car was found in Sussex after he disappeared, has now been officially declared dead.
He drove to see a friend in East Sussex in a borrowed car, which was later found abandoned in Fort Road, Newhaven.
Lady Lucan said she believed her husband boarded a ship leaving the port and then jumped to his death.
Despite various alleged sightings of the peer over the years, he was declared dead in 1999 – and his family granted probate over his estate – but a death certificate has only just been issued.
The new ruling, under the Presumption of Death Act 2014, means his son can now inherit the family title.
His son George Bingham, now the eighth Earl, said outside the court that he believed his father died soon after his disappearance.
Speaking after the judgement on Wednesday, Lord George 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.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
