WEBVTT FILE

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[dramatic music begins]

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[dramatic music continues]

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- [Reporter #1]
Of Lucan himself,

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nothing has been seen since
his children's nanny was found

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battered to death
here in the basement

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of the family home in Belgravia.

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Exhaustive police searches

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of the South Coast
produced no clue.

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- [Reporter #2] A massive
manhunt is underway

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for the location
of John Bingham,

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Seventh Earl of Lucan
who has disappeared

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and is suspected of murder.

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Anyone with information is
urged to contact police.

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[dramatic music continues]

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Bludgeoned to death at
46 Lower Belgrave Street.

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The Lucan family's
29-year-old nanny.

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- She is the primary victim and
yet we don't talk about her.

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What we are really
interested in, say the press,

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is the glamorous story of
Lord Lucan and Veronica Lucan,

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and that is immensely tragic.

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- The murder that saw her
lose her life has been defined

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in terms that don't
even namecheck her.

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She's referred to
retrospectively in the press

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as Little Miss Nobody.

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Well everybody is a somebody.

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- And she was always
well turned out,

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very quiet girl just like
the rest of us really.

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Very sad 'cause you
don't want someone

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you went to school with
to be murdered, do you?

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It's just in the wrong
place at the wrong time.

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- I feel guilty even now.

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I feel guilty because
of a young baby going

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to grow without his mommy.

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- The victim in this
case did have a name.

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That name was Sandra Rivett.

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[dramatic music fades]

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- The Lucan case.

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I can't remember a time
when I didn't know about it.

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It's something that so many
people have grown up with

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just in the collective
consciousness somehow.

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People used to tell jokes.

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It's almost like
he was a character

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rather than a person.

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I probably came across his
name more commonly like

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that than I did for
what he'd actually done.

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- I joined the police in 1981

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and he was the suspect in
a murder investigation.

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There would be times when
I can remember friends

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and we were joking
about something

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and I said, "Maybe Lord Lucan's
gonna appear in a minute."

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- It has so many of the elements
that make murder so very,

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very interesting and the
fact that it happened in

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that incongruous setting of

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that beautiful tall
white House in Belgravia

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and it's an unsolved mystery
because Lord Lucan disappeared.

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So it's one of
the great stories.

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- I've heard a lot of
stories about Lord Lucan,

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but I know very, very
little about Veronica Lucan

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and I didn't know Sandra
Rivett's name until I came

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to do this project, which
is alarming, isn't it?

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- This period of the 10 weeks
when Sandra Rivett was nanny

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to the Lucan children
is an unknown really.

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I believe she had a very good

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relationship with the children.

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There is no reason to disbelieve
that she was happy there.

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She brought a cat to the
house as well actually.

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So that was quite a sweet sort

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of domestic thing
to do if you like.

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And it does seem
like it was happy,

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it does seem like it
worked for all parties.

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[gentle music]

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- She always wanted to
go back to Australia.

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She talked about
it a lot actually.

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She'd spent a lot of
her childhood there

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and she just missed it terribly
and she wanted to go back.

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She missed the weather,
she missed the life.

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[dramatic music]

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My name's Mary Mackenzie

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and I went to school with
Sandra when I lived in Caterham

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my friends rang me up

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and told me that Sandra
had been murdered.

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Well I was shocked, hard
to believe really and sad

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'cause she's got two boys.

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Sad for her children.

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They're more interested
in him, weren't they?

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Than they were her.

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They seem to just put her as

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an afterthought
really I thought.

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- [Reporter #2] The family's
nanny killed in a murder

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most horrid.

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But the question on
everyone's lips is

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where is Lord Lucan?

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Did he do it?

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If not, why has he disappeared

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and where could he be?

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- There's an article in which
it says it was an ugly real

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life performance of
upstairs, downstairs.

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And they then say,

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and she was firmly kept
in her place downstairs

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where she was slaughtered.

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[dramatic music continues]

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So it is leaning into
the class narrative.

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I mean by what parameters
are individuals judged.

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The Lucans were somebody

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and in relation to them,
Sandra, she was erased.

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She was erased.

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[peaceful music]

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- Lord Lucan had a
certain status in life

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and it was that status

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that protected him really.

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And we might think that
things have changed,

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but if we look
through history now,

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we've got our cultural
royalty now rather

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than our actual aristocracy.

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People like Oscar Pistorius
who are in these elevated

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and privileged positions
and they killed partners.

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And yet in those cases,
even given what we know now,

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we still focused
on their narrative

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using their charisma to excuse

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and justify what
they might have done.

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So things haven't
changed that much.

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[peaceful music]

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- I got a call from
a junior officer,

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like many officers in London

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that night would've
heard the gossip.

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I think I'm right in saying
I was probably the youngest

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reporter on the staff
of the Evening Standard.

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I'd only just taken
over on the crime desk.

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It was a very different
time in the 70s.

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The police and the press,
particularly in London,

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were very much in
each other's pockets.

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There was also quite
a lot of money passed

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and changed hands between
reporters and police officers.

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In return for a good story,
a return for a good tip.

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As a young crime reporter,
I asked a colleague,

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"How do you get a policeman

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"to accept money in
return for a story?"

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And I was told, "Well any copper
in Britain will be happily

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"accept a bottle of scotch."

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And after a while you
say, I found this new way

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of putting a bottle of scotch
in a brown paper envelope.

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It's called cash.

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And I found that little
method of recruiting contacts

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to be quite powerful

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and in fact that was one
of the ways I heard about

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that night was someone
that I had recently treated

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to a paper envelope drink.

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Looking back on
it, it was wrong,

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it was corrupt and I probably
shouldn't be talking about it,

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but it happened in every
Fleet Street newspaper

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and in every police station.

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[bell tolls]
[dramatic music]

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- In terms of notifying
police of the murder,

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it was actually the landlord
of the Plumber's Arms.

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It was quite quiet that
evening when Lady Lucan came

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through the door covered
in blood being hysterical

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and almost fainting
in front of them.

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It would've been
a difficult scene.

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You know some people may have
thought, is this a windup?

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She initially said her
nanny had been killed.

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She said she'd been
attacked by her husband.

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At that point the
publican decided the
best thing they could

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do was to try and calm
her as best they could

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and inform the police.

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- I had a very good
contact with Roy Ranson,

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the senior
investigating officer,

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and I met him there
that night at the scene.

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It was already quite chaotic.

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There was one or two
policemen on the door.

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The forensic scientist
I think had arrived.

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There was an ambulance,

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there was people
looking out windows at

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what on earth was going
on in the road outside.

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It was a very posh part of
Belgravia and a very posh road.

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You didn't expect to
see something like that.

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As I was about to join
some of my other colleagues

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and photographers moving away
down the street a little way,

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I literally got
the wink from Roy.

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I slipped across to him and
talked to him on that doorstep

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and he said there was a body,
that it wasn't Lady Lucan,

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that Lady Lucan
and had been hurt

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and that he was really
interested in finding out

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where Lord Lucan was.

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[bell tolls]
[dramatic music]

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- When you read the account
provided by Roy Ranson

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and others, it was
obviously a lot

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of officers had
entered the premises,

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which would not happen now,

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the scene would have been
contained very quickly,

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but back in 1974 it was a
different time, a different era

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and things weren't
necessarily dealt with

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as you would've wanted
them to at the time.

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- Roy Ranson hadn't had any
chance to talk to Lady Lucan.

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As we were talking, we were
gravitating together almost

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to the top of the stairs

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and I got one look
down into the basement.

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It had police lights down there.

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There were police officers who
were walking through the pool

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of blood and tramping
it up the stairs

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and it was just general mayhem.

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In the bottom of the stairs
on the floor was the sack

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and Sandra Rivett's
body was in that sack

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and she was doubled up.

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She'd been put in
head and feet first.

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It was a very large
American canvas mail sack,

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and as far as I know, they
have never been able to find

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where that sack came from
and why Lucan had it.

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We know why he took
it to the house.

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It was to get rid of the body.

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So the only thing you could see

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of Sandra was very undignified.

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She had tights and white
pants on and that was it.

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- The officers recovered
a length of lead piping

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and it had been
wrapped with tape.

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It was likely that that
was the item that was used

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to attack not only Sandra
Rivett but also Lady Lucan.

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We know that Lady
Lucan's hair fibres were

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found on that item.

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One of the things to bear
in mind is in this day

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and age, if you had a a
weapon like that recovered,

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there would probably be
that much more information

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that could be gleaned that
you were more than likely

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to get DNA off of the weapon.

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But back then what they
would mainly be looking

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for will be the fibres,
blood and whether

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or not there were any
traces of fingerprints.

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[dramatic music]

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Roy Ranson was the chief
superintendent at the time.

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I tried to put
myself in his shoes

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and think, so what
would I do next?

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Well, we know that some
of his staff were going

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to be doing the initial
work at the scene in terms

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of exhibits, forensication,
house to house inquiries.

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He would've been thinking,
how am I going to identify

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how many suspects
were involved in it?

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- The person who attacked
her attacked her brutally

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and with an extreme
amount of force,

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the force was from
a blunt weapon

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and all of it was
directed towards her head

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and face, which means
that they were determined

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to do the most damage possible.

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This was a rage-fueled attack

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and it wasn't just one
blow or a couple of blows.

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This was a lot of
blows to Sandra's head.

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- The number one question

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00:14:16.234 --> 00:14:18.616
that next morning
would've been, who died?

249
00:14:18.616 --> 00:14:19.617
Who was murdered?

250
00:14:19.617 --> 00:14:21.205
And where's Lord Lucan?

251
00:14:21.205 --> 00:14:25.692
I can remember that being a
very fierce topic of debate

252
00:14:25.692 --> 00:14:28.453
where he could possibly be,
where he might be hiding.

253
00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:33.493
Had he done it?

254
00:14:35.012 --> 00:14:37.946
Sandra's identity and details

255
00:14:37.946 --> 00:14:41.052
such as they were would've
come out the next day.

256
00:14:42.295 --> 00:14:44.642
- The police knowledge
of the victim in terms

257
00:14:44.642 --> 00:14:48.025
of victimology was
that she was the nanny

258
00:14:48.025 --> 00:14:49.647
to the three children.

259
00:14:49.647 --> 00:14:52.167
She had only been
working at that address

260
00:14:52.167 --> 00:14:54.031
for about three months.

261
00:14:54.031 --> 00:14:56.274
She only started in August.

262
00:14:56.274 --> 00:14:58.828
It would've become apparent
that the relationship

263
00:14:58.828 --> 00:15:02.349
between Lady Lucan and
Sandra Rivett was healthy.

264
00:15:02.349 --> 00:15:03.178
It was good.

265
00:15:04.593 --> 00:15:08.355
- Sandra Rivett was almost
certainly murdered in error.

266
00:15:08.355 --> 00:15:11.048
The intended victim
had been Lady Lucan.

267
00:15:11.048 --> 00:15:14.534
This appalling set
of circumstances

268
00:15:14.534 --> 00:15:18.572
whereby Sandra, who should
have been on her night off,

269
00:15:18.572 --> 00:15:23.025
descended into the dark
basement of this tall house

270
00:15:23.025 --> 00:15:24.440
to make some tea

271
00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:27.547
and in the dark was
mistaken for Veronica Lucan.

272
00:15:28.755 --> 00:15:31.137
- I think it's quite
quickly forgotten

273
00:15:31.137 --> 00:15:35.037
that while Sandra is the
victim of this piece,

274
00:15:35.037 --> 00:15:37.350
she's the young woman
who lost her life,

275
00:15:37.350 --> 00:15:40.215
inexplicably and horribly.

276
00:15:40.215 --> 00:15:43.459
There is another victim
and that's Veronica.

277
00:15:43.459 --> 00:15:47.325
[sombre music]

278
00:15:49.258 --> 00:15:51.605
- I have some sympathy
with Lady Lucan

279
00:15:51.605 --> 00:15:56.438
because I think she did have
mentally challenging issues.

280
00:15:57.784 --> 00:16:01.753
Lord Lucan wasn't a particularly
caring husband to her

281
00:16:01.753 --> 00:16:03.238
and I don't think that

282
00:16:03.238 --> 00:16:06.413
after they got married he
even liked her for long,

283
00:16:06.413 --> 00:16:08.036
from everything that I've heard.

284
00:16:09.934 --> 00:16:14.559
- Towards the end of 1972,
Veronica turns to one

285
00:16:14.559 --> 00:16:16.837
of Lord Lucan's relatives

286
00:16:16.837 --> 00:16:19.185
and describes how
she's been feeling

287
00:16:19.185 --> 00:16:22.153
and she says she
could no longer cope.

288
00:16:24.259 --> 00:16:27.779
She describes how alone
and unhappy she felt.

289
00:16:29.471 --> 00:16:33.233
She spoke of her
husband's mental cruelty

290
00:16:33.233 --> 00:16:37.168
and she hinted at sexual
and physical abuse.

291
00:16:39.377 --> 00:16:40.965
- We have to bear in mind

292
00:16:40.965 --> 00:16:43.347
that the accidental player in
this narrative is Veronica.

293
00:16:43.347 --> 00:16:45.038
She's the person who survived

294
00:16:45.038 --> 00:16:47.454
and who later gave
her testimony, wrote
a book, et cetera.

295
00:16:47.454 --> 00:16:51.010
So we have to treat what
she says with caution,

296
00:16:53.805 --> 00:16:57.671
but certainly she is
very clear about aspects

297
00:16:57.671 --> 00:17:00.191
of their marriage that are
shocking to read about.

298
00:17:00.191 --> 00:17:03.056
You know, the cane that was
in his cupboard that he used

299
00:17:03.056 --> 00:17:04.264
to beat sense into her,

300
00:17:06.956 --> 00:17:09.718
beating out the nonsense
before they had intercourse.

301
00:17:09.718 --> 00:17:11.789
This happened more than once.

302
00:17:13.998 --> 00:17:17.829
- There were
accusations of abuse

303
00:17:17.829 --> 00:17:19.176
and control

304
00:17:19.176 --> 00:17:22.903
and stalking, which
are the three classic,

305
00:17:22.903 --> 00:17:27.149
classic risk-markers that
we would expect to see

306
00:17:27.149 --> 00:17:30.359
and I don't think I was
surprised to see them,

307
00:17:30.359 --> 00:17:33.259
but I was surprised
that they were

308
00:17:33.259 --> 00:17:35.226
actually pretty well known,

309
00:17:35.226 --> 00:17:38.712
but nobody seemed to think they
were particularly relevant.

310
00:17:38.712 --> 00:17:41.370
[sombre music continues]

311
00:17:41.370 --> 00:17:43.476
- Lord Lucan and
starts telling people

312
00:17:43.476 --> 00:17:47.583
that Veronica's behaving
oddly, suggesting

313
00:17:47.583 --> 00:17:52.278
that she's mad, making out
that she's harmed herself

314
00:17:52.278 --> 00:17:54.418
by throwing herself
down the stairs.

315
00:17:54.418 --> 00:17:56.558
He says all kinds of
things that starts

316
00:17:56.558 --> 00:18:01.528
to build a very negative picture
of her with other people.

317
00:18:02.840 --> 00:18:05.394
His motives for doing
that feel very devaluing.

318
00:18:05.394 --> 00:18:08.259
It's like, "I've had enough
of this particular person

319
00:18:08.259 --> 00:18:10.779
"and I want them
gone out of my life

320
00:18:10.779 --> 00:18:14.576
"and I will tell whatever story
I need to get what I want."

321
00:18:15.715 --> 00:18:17.682
- The press knew within a day

322
00:18:17.682 --> 00:18:20.133
or two that some
of the basic story

323
00:18:20.133 --> 00:18:23.412
that Lord Lucan wasn't
living at the family home,

324
00:18:23.412 --> 00:18:26.174
that there had
been disagreements

325
00:18:26.174 --> 00:18:28.072
about the custody
of the children.

326
00:18:29.763 --> 00:18:31.696
There were several
custody battles

327
00:18:31.696 --> 00:18:36.287
and Roy showed me the details
of the one that really sank

328
00:18:36.287 --> 00:18:37.806
Lord Lucan in the end.

329
00:18:39.118 --> 00:18:42.776
Veronica reveals that Lord
Lucan had made her dress

330
00:18:42.776 --> 00:18:46.125
in a rubber exercise
suit so that she was hot

331
00:18:46.125 --> 00:18:48.955
and sweaty when they
went to bed together.

332
00:18:48.955 --> 00:18:52.476
He had no clue that
she'd ever used

333
00:18:52.476 --> 00:18:54.788
that information in public.

334
00:18:54.788 --> 00:18:58.516
So when Lord Lucan is sitting
there in the custody hearing

335
00:18:58.516 --> 00:19:02.175
and he has his aged mother,
Caitlin, the Doja Countess

336
00:19:02.175 --> 00:19:04.004
of Lucan at his side

337
00:19:04.004 --> 00:19:07.422
and suddenly out of the blue
Veronica starts revealing

338
00:19:07.422 --> 00:19:12.427
the secrets of their bedroom
sex games and his kinkiness.

339
00:19:14.222 --> 00:19:17.086
He had been so embarrassed
that he hadn't been able

340
00:19:17.086 --> 00:19:20.918
to look at or talk to his
mother for weeks afterwards.

341
00:19:20.918 --> 00:19:23.092
He didn't expect that
to ever come out.

342
00:19:24.404 --> 00:19:26.026
I personally think

343
00:19:26.026 --> 00:19:29.375
that was the moment when Lord
Lucan decided she had to die.

344
00:19:32.999 --> 00:19:37.072
- It's in the official
record that he,

345
00:19:37.072 --> 00:19:40.179
I say manipulated
her in her words,

346
00:19:40.179 --> 00:19:42.526
to go and get
psychiatric treatment.

347
00:19:42.526 --> 00:19:45.977
He told her that
she was going crazy.

348
00:19:45.977 --> 00:19:49.498
He told her that she needed
drugs to keep her stable.

349
00:19:51.914 --> 00:19:56.125
- Veronica Lucan must
have been a lonely person

350
00:19:56.125 --> 00:20:01.027
and Sandra must have filled
a hole in her emotional

351
00:20:01.027 --> 00:20:03.512
and you know, social life.

352
00:20:03.512 --> 00:20:05.894
So they probably
were getting on okay,

353
00:20:05.894 --> 00:20:08.137
they were getting on well
enough for the children

354
00:20:08.137 --> 00:20:09.518
to really like her.

355
00:20:09.518 --> 00:20:13.212
They told their dad that
she was a very nice nanny

356
00:20:13.212 --> 00:20:16.042
and that everything
seemed to be going fine.

357
00:20:16.042 --> 00:20:19.045
[gentle piano music]

358
00:20:20.702 --> 00:20:24.326
- Sandra Elanor Hensby was born

359
00:20:24.326 --> 00:20:27.674
on the 16th of September, 1945.

360
00:20:27.674 --> 00:20:31.437
Her parents were
Eunice and Albert

361
00:20:31.437 --> 00:20:35.234
and she had three sisters,
two older, one younger.

362
00:20:36.959 --> 00:20:39.479
According to her school
report, she was bright

363
00:20:39.479 --> 00:20:41.343
but not academic.

364
00:20:41.343 --> 00:20:45.761
She left school at age 14,
which was not that unusual then.

365
00:20:47.107 --> 00:20:50.214
And then went out to work,
which is what women did

366
00:20:50.214 --> 00:20:51.974
before they got married.

367
00:20:51.974 --> 00:20:55.771
First she trained
to be a hairdresser,
but then she moved on

368
00:20:55.771 --> 00:20:57.635
and became a secretary.

369
00:20:58.809 --> 00:21:00.707
- Sandra lived in
the flats near me,

370
00:21:01.915 --> 00:21:04.573
we were all teenagers
starting out on life

371
00:21:04.573 --> 00:21:05.988
and enjoying meeting people

372
00:21:05.988 --> 00:21:08.508
and looking forward
to, well, deciding

373
00:21:08.508 --> 00:21:10.717
what you're gonna do
the rest of your life.

374
00:21:12.132 --> 00:21:14.618
I took Sandra on one occasion

375
00:21:14.618 --> 00:21:17.690
to a dance in the
barracks next door to us

376
00:21:17.690 --> 00:21:19.692
where the army was.

377
00:21:19.692 --> 00:21:22.073
It was always very nice, danced

378
00:21:22.073 --> 00:21:23.972
and met all the people there.

379
00:21:25.042 --> 00:21:27.562
I was 20 when I met my husband,

380
00:21:27.562 --> 00:21:28.977
I was at a dance at the barracks

381
00:21:28.977 --> 00:21:32.049
and he got me to pull
out the raffle tickets

382
00:21:32.049 --> 00:21:33.361
and then he asked me out

383
00:21:33.361 --> 00:21:34.810
and then we went out
together for a while

384
00:21:34.810 --> 00:21:37.641
and then we decided to get
married and that was it.

385
00:21:37.641 --> 00:21:42.024
- In 1963 when she was 17, 18,

386
00:21:42.024 --> 00:21:44.303
Sandra had mental health issues

387
00:21:44.303 --> 00:21:47.685
and she did spend a bit
of time in a hospital.

388
00:21:47.685 --> 00:21:50.378
That was after a
very bad breakup,

389
00:21:50.378 --> 00:21:51.931
which I suppose is possible.

390
00:21:51.931 --> 00:21:55.383
You know girls are very
susceptible at that age,

391
00:21:55.383 --> 00:21:59.145
but that seems to
have resolved itself.

392
00:21:59.145 --> 00:22:01.837
But it was significant
in another way

393
00:22:01.837 --> 00:22:06.221
in that she met a guy there
slightly older who was working

394
00:22:06.221 --> 00:22:08.430
as a builder at the hospital

395
00:22:08.430 --> 00:22:12.572
and they fell for each
other, young love,

396
00:22:12.572 --> 00:22:16.990
and when she was discharged,

397
00:22:16.990 --> 00:22:19.717
they carried on
seeing each other

398
00:22:19.717 --> 00:22:22.030
and announced their engagement.

399
00:22:23.169 --> 00:22:26.275
- Very soon after
Sandra becomes pregnant

400
00:22:26.275 --> 00:22:28.795
and she wants to get
married to this guy

401
00:22:28.795 --> 00:22:32.972
and he gets cold feet
and starts to withdraw

402
00:22:32.972 --> 00:22:34.594
and tells her, "You know what,

403
00:22:34.594 --> 00:22:35.837
"I'm not gonna go
ahead with this."

404
00:22:35.837 --> 00:22:38.149
And this leaves
Sandra heartbroken

405
00:22:38.149 --> 00:22:42.257
and on top of that, she's
also pregnant at a time

406
00:22:42.257 --> 00:22:46.434
where single women pregnant,

407
00:22:46.434 --> 00:22:48.850
unable to look for support,

408
00:22:48.850 --> 00:22:50.886
would've left her
in a very isolated

409
00:22:50.886 --> 00:22:52.992
and tricky position.

410
00:22:52.992 --> 00:22:55.512
[sombre music]

411
00:22:56.513 --> 00:22:57.376
[laughs]

412
00:22:57.376 --> 00:22:59.378
- Contraceptive options.

413
00:23:01.138 --> 00:23:04.037
Really the only way

414
00:23:04.037 --> 00:23:09.077
of not getting pregnant
was to not have sex.

415
00:23:09.664 --> 00:23:11.907
[sombre music]

416
00:23:13.599 --> 00:23:16.187
- If girls had carried
anything like condoms

417
00:23:16.187 --> 00:23:20.053
in the 60s, they would've
been classed as loose women.

418
00:23:20.053 --> 00:23:23.263
It was a different world then
you had to be more aware.

419
00:23:25.887 --> 00:23:29.580
- The contraceptive pill
is not legalised until 1961

420
00:23:29.580 --> 00:23:33.239
and it's certainly not
available to anyone initially.

421
00:23:33.239 --> 00:23:35.275
Wait for it, you
have to be married

422
00:23:35.275 --> 00:23:38.555
and with one child to get
the contraceptive pill

423
00:23:38.555 --> 00:23:39.832
in the early 1960s.

424
00:23:40.936 --> 00:23:45.113
- Abortion wasn't
legal until 1967,

425
00:23:45.113 --> 00:23:46.908
she was either gonna
become a single mother

426
00:23:46.908 --> 00:23:49.704
or she would do what a
lot of young women did,

427
00:23:49.704 --> 00:23:51.775
which was give the
baby up for adoption

428
00:23:51.775 --> 00:23:54.225
and that is what
she prepared to do.

429
00:23:55.226 --> 00:23:56.814
But then her parents stepped in

430
00:23:56.814 --> 00:23:58.644
and said that they
would bring him up

431
00:23:58.644 --> 00:24:00.818
and the baby believed

432
00:24:00.818 --> 00:24:04.408
that Sandra was his older
sister, which was quite common.

433
00:24:08.136 --> 00:24:12.312
So moving on three
years, we are in 1967,

434
00:24:12.312 --> 00:24:17.352
Sandra was having a relationship
with a local estate agent

435
00:24:18.664 --> 00:24:20.286
and he was married so it
didn't have a lot of future,

436
00:24:20.286 --> 00:24:23.082
unluckily got pregnant again.

437
00:24:23.082 --> 00:24:25.774
So she went down to her
older sister Theresa,

438
00:24:25.774 --> 00:24:27.189
who lived in Portsmouth

439
00:24:27.189 --> 00:24:29.329
and this time she didn't
really have a lot of choice

440
00:24:29.329 --> 00:24:31.400
but to give the baby
up for adoption.

441
00:24:33.817 --> 00:24:35.197
- That's quite
standard to move away

442
00:24:35.197 --> 00:24:37.268
when you're pregnant,
you don't wanna be seen,

443
00:24:37.268 --> 00:24:39.478
don't wanna bring the
family's name down

444
00:24:39.478 --> 00:24:44.068
and she gives birth when
she's dating the man

445
00:24:44.068 --> 00:24:46.899
who becomes her
husband, Roger Rivett.

446
00:24:46.899 --> 00:24:49.280
The baby, they don't
keep, for whatever reason,

447
00:24:49.280 --> 00:24:51.869
they decide they
can't manage the child

448
00:24:51.869 --> 00:24:54.009
who is subsequently
given up for adoption.

449
00:24:56.322 --> 00:24:57.841
- When I was
researching the book,

450
00:24:57.841 --> 00:25:00.844
I found the adoption
letter for the baby.

451
00:25:02.397 --> 00:25:05.331
I'm pleased to tell you we
have a baby son for you.

452
00:25:06.574 --> 00:25:08.472
- [Tessa] He was born
on February the fourth

453
00:25:08.472 --> 00:25:11.544
and weighs seven
pounds, eight ounces.

454
00:25:11.544 --> 00:25:14.305
- His mother is a
single girl, age 21.

455
00:25:14.305 --> 00:25:16.342
She already has one little boy

456
00:25:16.342 --> 00:25:19.345
who at the moment is being
cared for by her parents

457
00:25:19.345 --> 00:25:21.278
and she feels she
cannot possibly

458
00:25:21.278 --> 00:25:24.592
bring the baby up
properly herself.

459
00:25:24.592 --> 00:25:26.766
- The baby's father
is a man she's known

460
00:25:26.766 --> 00:25:28.285
for quite a long time.

461
00:25:28.285 --> 00:25:31.288
Unfortunately while his wife
had a period in hospital,

462
00:25:31.288 --> 00:25:33.462
she visited his home on
a number of occasions

463
00:25:33.462 --> 00:25:34.947
to help in the house.

464
00:25:34.947 --> 00:25:37.708
Intercourse occurred
and she became pregnant.

465
00:25:38.985 --> 00:25:40.849
- She did not want to
break his marriage,

466
00:25:40.849 --> 00:25:42.886
so came away from the area.

467
00:25:44.404 --> 00:25:46.821
God, that tells a
tale, doesn't it?

468
00:25:46.821 --> 00:25:49.478
[sombre music continues]

469
00:25:49.478 --> 00:25:51.550
I think it's pretty sad, really.

470
00:25:51.550 --> 00:25:53.103
She was very attractive

471
00:25:53.103 --> 00:25:56.624
and it sounds like she was quite
susceptible and she was 21.

472
00:25:56.624 --> 00:26:00.662
It's not very old and it sounds
like the bloke might have

473
00:26:00.662 --> 00:26:03.976
thought his lucky day had come

474
00:26:03.976 --> 00:26:05.633
when his wife was in hospital.

475
00:26:07.807 --> 00:26:12.605
- Sandra had very few
life choices when it came

476
00:26:12.605 --> 00:26:14.780
to how she lived her life.

477
00:26:14.780 --> 00:26:17.196
But at the same
time, I get the sense

478
00:26:17.196 --> 00:26:21.856
that Sandra was a very carefree,

479
00:26:21.856 --> 00:26:23.651
energetic kind of human being.

480
00:26:23.651 --> 00:26:25.998
So she was almost ahead
of her time in the way

481
00:26:25.998 --> 00:26:27.586
that she was living.

482
00:26:28.725 --> 00:26:31.728
- Her sister Teresa
subsequently says,

483
00:26:31.728 --> 00:26:34.109
"My sister said
she loved children

484
00:26:34.109 --> 00:26:36.111
:but she wasn't cut
out to have them."

485
00:26:36.111 --> 00:26:37.630
Theresa is trying

486
00:26:37.630 --> 00:26:41.634
to justify why her sister didn't
bring up her own children,

487
00:26:41.634 --> 00:26:43.187
but she doesn't need to

488
00:26:43.187 --> 00:26:45.362
because we know in
that decade, in the 60s

489
00:26:45.362 --> 00:26:48.883
and the 70s, the
majority of girls

490
00:26:48.883 --> 00:26:52.507
who had children out of
wedlock could not keep them.

491
00:26:55.579 --> 00:26:58.202
We were the highest year

492
00:26:58.202 --> 00:27:02.103
for adoption rates in
Britain in the 60s.

493
00:27:02.103 --> 00:27:03.932
1968,

494
00:27:03.932 --> 00:27:08.109
24,000 babies adopted.

495
00:27:08.109 --> 00:27:12.285
That is how many girls
were trying their luck.

496
00:27:12.285 --> 00:27:16.738
Didn't know how to say no, fell
the wrong side of the gamble

497
00:27:16.738 --> 00:27:19.327
and had a baby that
was illegitimate.

498
00:27:19.327 --> 00:27:22.295
[babies crying]

499
00:27:22.295 --> 00:27:25.782
- She married Roger
Rivett when she was 22.

500
00:27:25.782 --> 00:27:29.130
They got married in a
registry office in Croydon.

501
00:27:29.130 --> 00:27:31.442
He was away at sea
a lot of the time.

502
00:27:31.442 --> 00:27:33.513
Apparently he got
suspicious when she used

503
00:27:33.513 --> 00:27:35.723
to write regularly and then
the letters became a bit

504
00:27:35.723 --> 00:27:37.345
less frequent.

505
00:27:37.345 --> 00:27:38.760
- He's in the Navy.

506
00:27:38.760 --> 00:27:40.589
I mean she's quite lonely
I think when he's away,

507
00:27:40.589 --> 00:27:42.212
but she's always working.

508
00:27:42.212 --> 00:27:45.249
- In 1969, Roger
came back to England.

509
00:27:45.249 --> 00:27:49.184
I think the marriage
probably got back on track.

510
00:27:49.184 --> 00:27:51.877
Sandra was actually
working at an orphanage.

511
00:27:51.877 --> 00:27:53.395
She started as a cleaner,

512
00:27:53.395 --> 00:27:55.881
but I think she
got more involved

513
00:27:55.881 --> 00:27:58.090
with working with the children.

514
00:27:58.090 --> 00:28:01.507
But then we go to 1973

515
00:28:01.507 --> 00:28:04.475
and Roger went
back to sea again.

516
00:28:04.475 --> 00:28:08.238
We had that pattern of letters
becoming less frequent.

517
00:28:08.238 --> 00:28:11.241
And then the final,
the sort of climax

518
00:28:11.241 --> 00:28:13.933
came in May of 1974.

519
00:28:13.933 --> 00:28:16.556
They had a huge row and he left.

520
00:28:16.556 --> 00:28:17.488
That was the end.

521
00:28:18.697 --> 00:28:20.008
- We know that when the
marriage breaks down,

522
00:28:20.008 --> 00:28:21.769
she moves up to London.

523
00:28:21.769 --> 00:28:24.219
[sombre music continues]

524
00:28:25.496 --> 00:28:27.878
- She seemed to experience
a new lease of life

525
00:28:27.878 --> 00:28:30.363
after separating from
Roger, she was going out,

526
00:28:30.363 --> 00:28:32.952
she was engaging with friends,
she was having a good time

527
00:28:32.952 --> 00:28:36.784
and she puts her name
down for domestic service.

528
00:28:36.784 --> 00:28:40.132
She has one job that's
fairly short-lived

529
00:28:40.132 --> 00:28:43.031
and then her next job
is with the Lucans.

530
00:28:43.998 --> 00:28:46.759
[suspenseful music]

531
00:28:50.107 --> 00:28:54.008
- That was sort of paralleled
almost by the dislocation

532
00:28:54.008 --> 00:28:57.494
and breakdown of
Veronica's marriage

533
00:28:57.494 --> 00:29:00.152
and I think that's one of
the reasons why the girls,

534
00:29:00.152 --> 00:29:01.670
the women hit it off.

535
00:29:01.670 --> 00:29:03.776
And actually Veronica says
herself, these were happy times.

536
00:29:03.776 --> 00:29:05.226
They laughed a lot together.

537
00:29:06.641 --> 00:29:10.127
- She was employed to be a
nanny to the three children

538
00:29:10.127 --> 00:29:14.200
of the Lucan marriage,
Francis, George and Camilla.

539
00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:17.031
The wage was 25 pounds a week,

540
00:29:17.031 --> 00:29:20.172
which even in modern
money isn't very much,

541
00:29:20.172 --> 00:29:21.863
but of course she
had accommodation.

542
00:29:21.863 --> 00:29:26.005
She was living in a
house in Belgravia,

543
00:29:26.005 --> 00:29:29.250
a really very lovely house.

544
00:29:29.250 --> 00:29:33.426
She hadn't even unpacked all
her things when she died.

545
00:29:35.014 --> 00:29:37.568
[tense music]

546
00:29:48.752 --> 00:29:51.651
- Veronica was a fairly
challenging employer,

547
00:29:51.651 --> 00:29:55.103
but nonetheless Sandra
knows how to please people,

548
00:29:55.103 --> 00:29:57.796
it's one of the things that
makes Sandra so appealing,

549
00:29:57.796 --> 00:29:59.314
so attractive.

550
00:29:59.314 --> 00:30:03.215
- She was one of a long
procession of nannies.

551
00:30:05.355 --> 00:30:08.047
There was one that
only lasted four days.

552
00:30:08.047 --> 00:30:10.084
There was one that
lasted a bit longer.

553
00:30:10.084 --> 00:30:14.640
There were 6, 7, 8, I
don't know, it's not clear.

554
00:30:14.640 --> 00:30:17.091
But anyway, she arrived

555
00:30:18.333 --> 00:30:20.853
and it seems to
have been a success.

556
00:30:24.443 --> 00:30:26.065
- Both Sandra

557
00:30:26.065 --> 00:30:31.070
and Veronica in their own lives
had psychological struggles.

558
00:30:32.209 --> 00:30:34.349
They'd had real challenges
and difficulties

559
00:30:34.349 --> 00:30:37.076
and they were trying

560
00:30:37.076 --> 00:30:39.976
to find their way
in their own lives

561
00:30:39.976 --> 00:30:43.151
and this is the point at
which they come together under

562
00:30:43.151 --> 00:30:48.122
Veronica's roof and they
make sense to one another.

563
00:30:50.469 --> 00:30:51.850
- What's interesting is noting

564
00:30:51.850 --> 00:30:53.921
how Sandra checked in
on Veronica when she

565
00:30:53.921 --> 00:30:55.267
wasn't working the weekends.

566
00:30:55.267 --> 00:30:58.857
She picked up on her
employer's vulnerability

567
00:30:58.857 --> 00:31:02.791
and Veronica felt able to share

568
00:31:02.791 --> 00:31:04.310
that vulnerability with Sandra.

569
00:31:04.310 --> 00:31:06.209
There was a kinship.

570
00:31:06.209 --> 00:31:09.453
There clearly was a
feeling of mutual sympathy.

571
00:31:09.453 --> 00:31:12.629
They understood each
other's circumstances.

572
00:31:15.632 --> 00:31:19.084
[bright music]

573
00:31:19.084 --> 00:31:21.845
- Veronica Duncan as she was,

574
00:31:21.845 --> 00:31:24.330
was born in 1937.

575
00:31:25.435 --> 00:31:28.369
She had a younger
sister, Christina

576
00:31:28.369 --> 00:31:31.372
and her father was
an army officer

577
00:31:31.372 --> 00:31:33.374
who was killed when
she was quite young.

578
00:31:33.374 --> 00:31:36.446
He was killed in a car crash,
but her mother married again

579
00:31:36.446 --> 00:31:40.312
and they spent some of their
childhood in South Africa.

580
00:31:40.312 --> 00:31:44.005
- Her and her sister Christina
are sent to boarding school

581
00:31:44.005 --> 00:31:47.388
and I think this is
incredibly difficult

582
00:31:47.388 --> 00:31:49.804
for the very young Veronica.

583
00:31:49.804 --> 00:31:53.049
Her and her sister are bullied
for a number of reasons,

584
00:31:53.049 --> 00:31:57.398
which makes life for Veronica
incredibly difficult.

585
00:31:57.398 --> 00:32:01.091
And I think her mother
struggles with what to do,

586
00:32:01.091 --> 00:32:05.371
sends Veronica to a psychiatrist

587
00:32:05.371 --> 00:32:09.479
who labels her, a troubled child

588
00:32:09.479 --> 00:32:13.828
and I think that's where
some of her issues begin.

589
00:32:15.864 --> 00:32:19.144
- The family left
South Africa in 1949.

590
00:32:19.144 --> 00:32:21.180
They came back and
they lived quite near

591
00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:24.011
where Sandra was
born in Basingstoke.

592
00:32:24.011 --> 00:32:28.187
The stepfather ran a pub
called the Wheatsheaf.

593
00:32:28.187 --> 00:32:30.845
I can remember one of
the policemen talking

594
00:32:30.845 --> 00:32:31.915
to me about Veronica

595
00:32:31.915 --> 00:32:33.710
and he said, she always said,

596
00:32:33.710 --> 00:32:36.092
"I am a Countess of the realm."

597
00:32:36.092 --> 00:32:39.129
And he said she
grew up in a pub,

598
00:32:39.129 --> 00:32:40.337
but they were the daughters

599
00:32:40.337 --> 00:32:42.408
of an army officer
and what have you.

600
00:32:42.408 --> 00:32:46.033
She was very status aware,
Veronica, no question.

601
00:32:47.137 --> 00:32:49.174
- Veronica got
herself up to London.

602
00:32:49.174 --> 00:32:51.107
She tried her hand
at various jobs.

603
00:32:51.107 --> 00:32:52.039
She wasn't a sticker.

604
00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:53.247
She left art college.

605
00:32:53.247 --> 00:32:54.213
She couldn't really
bear the idea

606
00:32:54.213 --> 00:32:56.250
of doing four years on a course.

607
00:32:56.250 --> 00:32:57.837
Now that again
doesn't surprise me.

608
00:32:57.837 --> 00:32:59.736
Nobody had long-term
really invested in her

609
00:32:59.736 --> 00:33:00.909
or spent time with her.

610
00:33:00.909 --> 00:33:02.118
She'd never lived
or been settled in

611
00:33:02.118 --> 00:33:03.498
one place for that long.

612
00:33:04.879 --> 00:33:07.399
- By now, Veronica is 25

613
00:33:07.399 --> 00:33:10.160
and very hard for
us to understand.

614
00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:12.645
But that was then
getting to the point

615
00:33:12.645 --> 00:33:14.130
of why aren't you married?

616
00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:17.512
You know the shelf,
the dreaded shelf,

617
00:33:19.031 --> 00:33:22.034
I suppose the shelf
was when you were 30,

618
00:33:22.034 --> 00:33:25.831
but 25 is, you know,
the shelf is visible.

619
00:33:25.831 --> 00:33:27.419
One of the things
that was said was

620
00:33:27.419 --> 00:33:30.974
that Veronica had a complex
about being very, very small.

621
00:33:30.974 --> 00:33:32.113
She was, she was tiny.

622
00:33:32.113 --> 00:33:34.978
She was like a
China doll almost.

623
00:33:34.978 --> 00:33:39.569
And she thought that being small
was a sign of bad breeding.

624
00:33:40.673 --> 00:33:43.262
- Veronica absolutely
felt single.

625
00:33:43.262 --> 00:33:46.231
She tells us later in
her memoir, she admits,

626
00:33:46.231 --> 00:33:48.716
she says herself, "I cannot
stress the importance

627
00:33:48.716 --> 00:33:51.029
"of getting married for
my generation of women."

628
00:33:53.134 --> 00:33:54.894
Of course, a situation
for her, compounded

629
00:33:54.894 --> 00:33:56.896
by the fact her younger sister,

630
00:33:56.896 --> 00:34:00.693
she had a successful marriage
into the Shand Kydd dynasty

631
00:34:00.693 --> 00:34:02.178
and all the trappings of wealth

632
00:34:02.178 --> 00:34:04.283
and prestige that came with it.

633
00:34:04.283 --> 00:34:06.354
Poor old Veronica
wasn't quite so lucky.

634
00:34:06.354 --> 00:34:09.047
- Christina married
Bill Shand Kydd

635
00:34:09.047 --> 00:34:11.394
who was very
connected, connections

636
00:34:11.394 --> 00:34:14.776
to the late Princess
of Wales, Diana.

637
00:34:14.776 --> 00:34:16.123
A rich man,

638
00:34:16.123 --> 00:34:20.127
but that put Veronica
in an orbit if you like,

639
00:34:20.127 --> 00:34:22.474
because she could visit
Bill and Christina

640
00:34:22.474 --> 00:34:25.063
and there would've
been Bill's friends.

641
00:34:25.063 --> 00:34:28.652
[tense music]

642
00:34:30.896 --> 00:34:34.624
One of Bill Shand
Kydd's friends was

643
00:34:34.624 --> 00:34:38.248
the then John Bingham who
would become Lord Lucan.

644
00:34:43.046 --> 00:34:46.187
John Bingham was beyond
her wildest dreams.

645
00:34:46.187 --> 00:34:48.914
She would've thought
he was a god.

646
00:34:48.914 --> 00:34:52.573
He was regarded as
extremely good looking.

647
00:34:52.573 --> 00:34:55.679
I mean, he was asked to
test for films and so on.

648
00:34:55.679 --> 00:34:57.716
He was a catch, no question.

649
00:34:57.716 --> 00:35:00.960
And possibly she may have
thought a better catch

650
00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:04.171
than Bill Shand Kydd, which I
think she might have enjoyed.

651
00:35:06.552 --> 00:35:11.039
- Lucan was considered
as a possible James Bond.

652
00:35:11.039 --> 00:35:14.802
I mean, he was a handsome
man, he was very sporty.

653
00:35:14.802 --> 00:35:18.564
He raced powerboats and
he was really good at it.

654
00:35:20.877 --> 00:35:24.708
When you look at it, if I was
producing a James Bond movie

655
00:35:24.708 --> 00:35:26.538
and I needed a character,

656
00:35:26.538 --> 00:35:31.577
then a powerboat racing,
handsome, bobsleigh skiing,

657
00:35:32.820 --> 00:35:35.857
gambling aristocrat is
a pretty good choice.

658
00:35:36.858 --> 00:35:38.481
He would've been
a good James Bond.

659
00:35:40.621 --> 00:35:43.071
- It always reminds
me a little bit

660
00:35:43.071 --> 00:35:47.145
of when Diana met Prince
Charles, you know,

661
00:35:47.145 --> 00:35:49.906
and they seemed to
understand each other

662
00:35:49.906 --> 00:35:54.842
and he may have thought
this sweet young girl will

663
00:35:54.842 --> 00:35:57.293
be a nice docile wife.

664
00:35:57.293 --> 00:35:59.536
And she seemed to understand him

665
00:35:59.536 --> 00:36:02.021
and Lucan said to her,
you know, "I'm a gambler.

666
00:36:02.021 --> 00:36:03.782
I'm gonna, this is
my way of life."

667
00:36:03.782 --> 00:36:05.370
And she said to him,
"Oh no, that's fine.

668
00:36:05.370 --> 00:36:06.923
"That doesn't matter at all."

669
00:36:06.923 --> 00:36:10.444
[gentle piano music]

670
00:36:10.444 --> 00:36:13.964
- Lord Lucan operated
in a clandestine world,

671
00:36:13.964 --> 00:36:16.484
the Clermont Club, this
is a gambling fraternity.

672
00:36:16.484 --> 00:36:20.557
They're operating without
the standard norms of society

673
00:36:20.557 --> 00:36:23.181
and they are very
much a boys club.

674
00:36:23.181 --> 00:36:27.461
In an old school world
where class, status, wealth

675
00:36:27.461 --> 00:36:29.704
and title really
meant something,

676
00:36:29.704 --> 00:36:32.569
[gentle piano music continues]

677
00:36:33.984 --> 00:36:37.540
- By the time that they are
married, it becomes clear

678
00:36:37.540 --> 00:36:41.164
that Lord Lucan's friends
don't really think that much

679
00:36:41.164 --> 00:36:42.786
of Veronica.

680
00:36:42.786 --> 00:36:44.961
She's not one of their set.

681
00:36:44.961 --> 00:36:47.895
And I think this message
is reinforced when she goes

682
00:36:47.895 --> 00:36:51.588
to the Clermont Club
where she is made

683
00:36:51.588 --> 00:36:53.487
to sit on the widow's bench

684
00:36:53.487 --> 00:36:57.663
and he is at the
centre gambling,

685
00:36:57.663 --> 00:37:01.702
doing whatever he wants
to do as the man's man.

686
00:37:01.702 --> 00:37:05.568
[dramatic music]

687
00:37:05.568 --> 00:37:10.469
- Lord Lucan was living in
a quite a misogynistic time

688
00:37:10.469 --> 00:37:12.402
in history.

689
00:37:12.402 --> 00:37:15.267
He certainly thought he
was superior to women.

690
00:37:16.441 --> 00:37:20.514
He recognised that
Veronica was actually

691
00:37:20.514 --> 00:37:24.759
quite an intelligent,
witty, quick woman,

692
00:37:24.759 --> 00:37:26.382
and he said to her,

693
00:37:27.590 --> 00:37:29.626
there can only be one
captain of the ship.

694
00:37:29.626 --> 00:37:32.905
That's like,
"Whatever I say goes,

695
00:37:32.905 --> 00:37:34.769
" it doesn't matter if
you think you know better

696
00:37:34.769 --> 00:37:37.220
"or even if you
actually do know better.

697
00:37:37.220 --> 00:37:39.222
"I'm the captain of this ship."

698
00:37:41.328 --> 00:37:45.228
He started to
undermine Veronica,

699
00:37:45.228 --> 00:37:47.368
and one of the ways
that he started

700
00:37:47.368 --> 00:37:50.958
to undermine Veronica was to
question her mental health,

701
00:37:50.958 --> 00:37:53.409
her emotional stability.

702
00:37:53.409 --> 00:37:57.171
And this was something
that got a lot worse

703
00:37:57.171 --> 00:37:58.448
and worse over time.

704
00:37:59.380 --> 00:38:01.002
- The Lucans had three children.

705
00:38:01.002 --> 00:38:04.730
Francis was born
in 1964, George,

706
00:38:04.730 --> 00:38:07.802
so the heir, was born in 1967

707
00:38:07.802 --> 00:38:10.218
and Camilla was born in 1970

708
00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:15.983
and there were questions
of postnatal depression.

709
00:38:18.606 --> 00:38:21.713
- Veronica was
known to rock back

710
00:38:21.713 --> 00:38:25.475
and forth from a very early age,

711
00:38:25.475 --> 00:38:29.341
and she was seen doing
this in the Clermont Club,

712
00:38:29.341 --> 00:38:32.551
and I think that
might have been a way

713
00:38:32.551 --> 00:38:36.486
of self-soothing whatever
she was experiencing,

714
00:38:36.486 --> 00:38:38.764
and I think it's just
one of those behaviours

715
00:38:38.764 --> 00:38:42.768
that she found helpful without
consciously being aware that

716
00:38:42.768 --> 00:38:44.045
that's what she was doing.

717
00:38:44.045 --> 00:38:46.738
It was something almost
very primal to her.

718
00:38:48.740 --> 00:38:51.467
- There were two
incidents in 1972.

719
00:38:51.467 --> 00:38:54.297
One was that the Lucans
were at the Clermont Club

720
00:38:54.297 --> 00:38:57.576
and Veronica threw a glass
of wine in a woman's face,

721
00:38:57.576 --> 00:39:01.166
which was like a thunderbolt.

722
00:39:03.375 --> 00:39:05.170
People had been sort of more

723
00:39:05.170 --> 00:39:08.587
and more saying, "Oh,
she's a nightmare."

724
00:39:08.587 --> 00:39:10.658
Which you can
interpret as you wish,

725
00:39:10.658 --> 00:39:12.004
but the fact is she
did throw a glass

726
00:39:12.004 --> 00:39:13.592
of wine in someone's face.

727
00:39:13.592 --> 00:39:16.595
You might be sympathetic to
her for doing it, but she did.

728
00:39:16.595 --> 00:39:21.013
And then the second thing was
that she sacked this nanny,

729
00:39:21.013 --> 00:39:23.015
the long-term nanny,

730
00:39:23.015 --> 00:39:25.673
and that seems to have been
the last straw for Lucan.

731
00:39:25.673 --> 00:39:29.643
[sombre music]

732
00:39:32.266 --> 00:39:34.061
- The family was
clearly in crisis.

733
00:39:34.061 --> 00:39:35.959
He moves out of
the marital home.

734
00:39:35.959 --> 00:39:39.584
Clermont Club is sold, his
gambling's out of control.

735
00:39:39.584 --> 00:39:41.862
He's having to spend a lot
of money claiming custody or

736
00:39:41.862 --> 00:39:43.864
otherwise of his children.

737
00:39:43.864 --> 00:39:46.763
Building up to the
main custody battle.

738
00:39:46.763 --> 00:39:50.146
She has to prove that she's
mentally capable of looking

739
00:39:50.146 --> 00:39:52.562
after those children, of
being the primary parent.

740
00:39:52.562 --> 00:39:55.910
So she checks herself into
the priory and is assessed.

741
00:39:55.910 --> 00:39:57.636
- She had a guy
from the priory come

742
00:39:57.636 --> 00:39:59.673
and say that she was
completely cured.

743
00:39:59.673 --> 00:40:01.157
As long as she kept
taking the right drugs,

744
00:40:01.157 --> 00:40:02.434
she was completely cured.

745
00:40:05.023 --> 00:40:07.266
She won the hearing and
all the things she'd said

746
00:40:07.266 --> 00:40:10.028
about Lucan which were meant
to be kept under wraps,

747
00:40:10.028 --> 00:40:11.547
all came out.

748
00:40:11.547 --> 00:40:13.997
You know all these things
about his sexual deviancy

749
00:40:13.997 --> 00:40:16.310
and his general violence,

750
00:40:16.310 --> 00:40:19.175
general ghastliness,
all this came out.

751
00:40:19.175 --> 00:40:22.385
[sombre music continues]

752
00:40:22.385 --> 00:40:27.183
- Veronica is told she has to
have a nanny to help her look

753
00:40:27.183 --> 00:40:28.840
after the children full time.

754
00:40:28.840 --> 00:40:31.152
And this is hugely problematic.

755
00:40:33.879 --> 00:40:37.952
- Sandra, she'd had
quite a few predecessors

756
00:40:37.952 --> 00:40:40.783
over the previous year or so.

757
00:40:42.681 --> 00:40:44.649
- My name is Pierrete Goletto.

758
00:40:44.649 --> 00:40:47.859
I am French by birth

759
00:40:47.859 --> 00:40:51.483
and Italian by both my parents.

760
00:40:51.483 --> 00:40:54.452
I live with the Lucan
family for a long time

761
00:40:54.452 --> 00:40:56.488
of I think over a year,

762
00:40:56.488 --> 00:40:58.835
and I look after the
three little children.

763
00:40:58.835 --> 00:41:01.528
[gentle piano music]

764
00:41:01.528 --> 00:41:05.980
In 1974, I saw an advert of

765
00:41:05.980 --> 00:41:09.881
an agency looking for nannies.

766
00:41:09.881 --> 00:41:13.712
I was told that the nanny
before me lasted for a few days.

767
00:41:14.886 --> 00:41:17.302
I have to go to a
lawyer to be accepted.

768
00:41:17.302 --> 00:41:20.443
The lawyer, and I
remember his question,

769
00:41:20.443 --> 00:41:23.998
"Will you stay if they have
trouble in the family?"

770
00:41:23.998 --> 00:41:25.897
I say, "I am here to
protect the children,

771
00:41:25.897 --> 00:41:27.968
"to take them away from it.

772
00:41:27.968 --> 00:41:28.969
"That's all."

773
00:41:28.969 --> 00:41:30.349
And then he said to me,

774
00:41:30.349 --> 00:41:33.732
"Right, you got the job.
You can start. Great."

775
00:41:34.940 --> 00:41:36.908
I really loved the children.

776
00:41:36.908 --> 00:41:38.219
Really, really.

777
00:41:39.393 --> 00:41:41.706
Camilla was about
two and a half.

778
00:41:41.706 --> 00:41:44.467
George was about five.

779
00:41:44.467 --> 00:41:45.917
Francis was the biggest one.

780
00:41:45.917 --> 00:41:47.505
She was about seven.

781
00:41:47.505 --> 00:41:49.023
We get up in the morning,

782
00:41:49.023 --> 00:41:51.923
I bring the food up in the
nursery, we eat up there.

783
00:41:51.923 --> 00:41:53.476
We have a lot of fun.

784
00:41:53.476 --> 00:41:56.997
We read the story,
get ready, take

785
00:41:56.997 --> 00:42:00.241
Francisca to the school,
George would stay with me,

786
00:42:00.241 --> 00:42:02.761
then I cook the supper.

787
00:42:02.761 --> 00:42:06.282
This was seven days a week,
but on Sunday it was fun

788
00:42:06.282 --> 00:42:08.008
because we could go to the park.

789
00:42:10.079 --> 00:42:12.633
[tense music]

790
00:42:19.191 --> 00:42:22.609
- This isn't a standard nannying
situation, bearing in mind

791
00:42:22.609 --> 00:42:27.061
that it's not normal
to be fighting the
custody of children.

792
00:42:29.098 --> 00:42:32.515
Divorce isn't commonplace
in the early 1970s,

793
00:42:32.515 --> 00:42:36.174
so the situation is unusual.

794
00:42:36.174 --> 00:42:37.969
It's highly charged

795
00:42:37.969 --> 00:42:41.938
and I would think challenging,
emotionally challenging.

796
00:42:44.354 --> 00:42:47.668
- I remember clearly my first
meeting with Lady Lucan,

797
00:42:47.668 --> 00:42:49.221
with Veronica.

798
00:42:49.221 --> 00:42:52.362
I was lying on the floor,
playing with the children.

799
00:42:52.362 --> 00:42:55.573
She said to me, "Is this
the way you do in France?"

800
00:42:55.573 --> 00:42:58.955
I said, "This this the
way the children like it."

801
00:42:58.955 --> 00:43:00.370
And she just walk away.

802
00:43:02.752 --> 00:43:06.238
The children didn't see their
mother sometime for weeks,

803
00:43:06.238 --> 00:43:09.448
and when I was seeing her
dancing around the table

804
00:43:09.448 --> 00:43:13.176
with a bottle of vodka,

805
00:43:13.176 --> 00:43:15.385
I knew it wasn't the
time to talk to her.

806
00:43:17.284 --> 00:43:19.700
- What one did
here repeatedly was

807
00:43:19.700 --> 00:43:21.702
that Lucan was a
very hands-on father,

808
00:43:21.702 --> 00:43:24.912
unusually so for, you
might say, the time,

809
00:43:24.912 --> 00:43:26.120
the class, whatever,

810
00:43:28.536 --> 00:43:31.056
he was a very
affectionate father.

811
00:43:31.056 --> 00:43:34.542
I remember speaking to a
nanny of the children of one

812
00:43:34.542 --> 00:43:37.407
of his friends and she
said he was the only one

813
00:43:37.407 --> 00:43:39.927
who came into the nursery.

814
00:43:39.927 --> 00:43:42.654
[gentle music]

815
00:43:43.724 --> 00:43:45.450
- He was living down the road.

816
00:43:45.450 --> 00:43:48.798
I think it was Elizabeth
Street if I remember rightly,

817
00:43:48.798 --> 00:43:51.318
because sometime I was in
the dining room downstairs

818
00:43:51.318 --> 00:43:54.183
studying when he was
coming at two o'clock,

819
00:43:54.183 --> 00:43:55.563
three o'clock in the afternoon

820
00:43:55.563 --> 00:43:57.462
before I go to pick
up the children.

821
00:43:58.774 --> 00:44:02.640
I could hear them arguing,
arguing about money,

822
00:44:02.640 --> 00:44:07.437
arguing about gambling,
arguing about wasting money,

823
00:44:07.437 --> 00:44:09.405
arguing about the children.

824
00:44:10.613 --> 00:44:13.858
"I am going to prevent
you to see George."

825
00:44:13.858 --> 00:44:18.863
And that was the biggest
threat Lord Lucan can have

826
00:44:18.863 --> 00:44:22.798
because one thing is sure,
he love his children.

827
00:44:27.250 --> 00:44:31.807
Just outside Belgrave Street
is a little kind of park

828
00:44:31.807 --> 00:44:35.638
and I was going there
and I know he was passing

829
00:44:35.638 --> 00:44:39.504
and taking photos
of the children.

830
00:44:39.504 --> 00:44:41.195
- He did two things
with the nannies.

831
00:44:41.195 --> 00:44:42.749
He had them followed

832
00:44:42.749 --> 00:44:46.614
and he also did his best to
tape record their conversations.

833
00:44:46.614 --> 00:44:50.308
So he had a private
investigation company

834
00:44:50.308 --> 00:44:51.619
that was working for him.

835
00:44:51.619 --> 00:44:54.346
At times, they had two
different operatives

836
00:44:54.346 --> 00:44:56.935
who would follow the
nannies when the children

837
00:44:56.935 --> 00:44:59.006
left the house and
follow Lady Lucan.

838
00:45:00.801 --> 00:45:04.978
It was a concerted bit of
espionage that was going on.

839
00:45:04.978 --> 00:45:07.739
- The most startling
behaviour for me

840
00:45:07.739 --> 00:45:12.295
that I saw in this case was
the stalking that happened

841
00:45:12.295 --> 00:45:14.504
after they had separated

842
00:45:14.504 --> 00:45:16.610
and it probably wouldn't have
been called stalking back in

843
00:45:16.610 --> 00:45:20.510
the 70s, but what he was
doing was actually stalking.

844
00:45:20.510 --> 00:45:24.583
He was parking up
outside Veronica's house

845
00:45:24.583 --> 00:45:27.759
and he would sit there
for hour upon hour

846
00:45:27.759 --> 00:45:30.382
staring at the house.

847
00:45:30.382 --> 00:45:34.524
One of the nannies
reported that there were 22

848
00:45:34.524 --> 00:45:38.459
heavy breathing phone calls
to the house in just one hour,

849
00:45:39.806 --> 00:45:43.671
leaving either silent
messages or heavy breathing.

850
00:45:43.671 --> 00:45:46.364
[tense music]

851
00:45:47.710 --> 00:45:49.781
Now that is to
frighten somebody.

852
00:45:49.781 --> 00:45:51.818
This man is actually wanting

853
00:45:51.818 --> 00:45:54.890
to dominate Veronica's life.

854
00:45:54.890 --> 00:45:57.720
"I'm still here. I'm
not going anywhere."

855
00:45:59.101 --> 00:46:01.241
- He would tape a
call to Veronica

856
00:46:02.552 --> 00:46:05.693
and he would start off
talking reasonably to her,

857
00:46:05.693 --> 00:46:09.318
and then he would slowly provoke
her into losing her temper

858
00:46:09.318 --> 00:46:13.080
on the telephone and starting
to rant and rave at him.

859
00:46:13.080 --> 00:46:14.944
And only when she was ranting

860
00:46:14.944 --> 00:46:18.465
and raving, he would then turn
on his tape recorder when he

861
00:46:18.465 --> 00:46:23.297
realised that nothing was gonna
work to get those kids back

862
00:46:23.297 --> 00:46:27.198
other than removing
Veronica from the scene,

863
00:46:27.198 --> 00:46:30.788
he abandoned all the sort
of the nanny shenanigans,

864
00:46:30.788 --> 00:46:34.412
if you like, and just
began concentrating on

865
00:46:34.412 --> 00:46:37.035
how do you kill your wife
and get away with it.

866
00:46:37.035 --> 00:46:39.969
[suspenseful music]

867
00:46:39.969 --> 00:46:43.904
- I think one marry
the other one for money

868
00:46:43.904 --> 00:46:46.838
and one marry the
other one for a title.

869
00:46:46.838 --> 00:46:51.360
Veronica was very, very attached
of her title of the lady.

870
00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:54.432
I don't think he has
any sign of violence.

871
00:46:55.743 --> 00:47:00.162
Lot of sadness, lot of
hunger yes, but violence.

872
00:47:01.335 --> 00:47:03.337
This wasn't a term
that we used for him.

873
00:47:03.337 --> 00:47:04.235
No.

874
00:47:06.271 --> 00:47:08.032
And one thing is sure,

875
00:47:08.032 --> 00:47:11.276
when he was telling hello to
me, he was not telling hello,

876
00:47:11.276 --> 00:47:13.520
like if I was a dog,
he was looking at me.

877
00:47:13.520 --> 00:47:16.143
He was looking and
saying, good afternoon.

878
00:47:16.143 --> 00:47:18.249
Thank you for looking
after the children.

879
00:47:19.422 --> 00:47:22.149
- Any behavioural issues
that Veronica displayed.

880
00:47:22.149 --> 00:47:24.876
The police theory was that
they were Lucan's fault.

881
00:47:24.876 --> 00:47:29.674
They said that Lord Lucan had
been trying to send her mad

882
00:47:29.674 --> 00:47:31.572
or convince her
that she was mad.

883
00:47:31.572 --> 00:47:35.024
She said to them, "He used to
take me off to psychiatrists."

884
00:47:35.024 --> 00:47:36.992
There was pretty strong evidence

885
00:47:36.992 --> 00:47:39.063
that the children
shouldn't be with her.

886
00:47:42.514 --> 00:47:45.655
He had concerns about
her as early as 1967

887
00:47:45.655 --> 00:47:48.624
and he didn't even leave
the marriage until 1973.

888
00:47:48.624 --> 00:47:51.696
So that means he was
playing a very long game,

889
00:47:51.696 --> 00:47:54.768
which frankly he
wasn't capable of.

890
00:47:54.768 --> 00:47:56.218
And it's ridiculous.

891
00:47:56.218 --> 00:47:59.152
He just wasn't that imaginative.

892
00:47:59.152 --> 00:48:01.809
He just wasn't.

893
00:48:01.809 --> 00:48:05.986
- There are conflicting
descriptions of what Lord Lucan

894
00:48:05.986 --> 00:48:07.643
was like as a person.

895
00:48:07.643 --> 00:48:10.818
Some people describe
him as very charming

896
00:48:10.818 --> 00:48:15.340
and very charismatic
and friendly and nice.

897
00:48:15.340 --> 00:48:19.448
Other people say that that
mask slipped quite a lot.

898
00:48:21.139 --> 00:48:25.316
One of the things that we know
about controlling people is

899
00:48:25.316 --> 00:48:27.939
that they are very,
very manipulative.

900
00:48:27.939 --> 00:48:31.874
So they will learn as
they go through life.

901
00:48:31.874 --> 00:48:36.154
What works, what gives
me the most control?

902
00:48:36.154 --> 00:48:39.847
Most of this charm would've
been used on people

903
00:48:39.847 --> 00:48:41.470
who could be useful to him.

904
00:48:42.954 --> 00:48:45.439
- His motivations to get rid

905
00:48:45.439 --> 00:48:48.235
of Veronica were
very, very strong.

906
00:48:50.203 --> 00:48:54.276
Veronica was, in his
eyes, ruining his life.

907
00:48:54.276 --> 00:48:58.694
And it wasn't only that she
had won custody of the children

908
00:48:58.694 --> 00:49:02.077
in the most embarrassing
way possible for him.

909
00:49:02.077 --> 00:49:07.082
It was also that she was
living in the Lucan Trust's

910
00:49:08.566 --> 00:49:11.776
Belgravia mansion, while Lucan
was living around the corner

911
00:49:11.776 --> 00:49:13.812
in a little two bed flat

912
00:49:13.812 --> 00:49:18.679
and she was spending money at
Harrod's like it was water.

913
00:49:18.679 --> 00:49:22.131
No court was going to let
him sell their family home

914
00:49:22.131 --> 00:49:24.099
so he couldn't access
any of the money

915
00:49:24.099 --> 00:49:25.928
that he had locked up there.

916
00:49:25.928 --> 00:49:27.585
He was like many aristocrats.

917
00:49:27.585 --> 00:49:30.588
He was asset rich and cash poor.

918
00:49:32.900 --> 00:49:36.318
Divorcing her, which he almost
certainly would've wanted

919
00:49:36.318 --> 00:49:39.321
to do, would possibly
have made the situation

920
00:49:39.321 --> 00:49:40.978
even worse for him.

921
00:49:45.913 --> 00:49:48.571
- I think it was about the
end of September, I was told

922
00:49:48.571 --> 00:49:52.679
by the lady from the Au Pair
agency I wasn't needed anymore

923
00:49:52.679 --> 00:49:55.647
and they needed somebody

924
00:49:55.647 --> 00:49:57.546
English to replace me.

925
00:49:57.546 --> 00:49:58.443
I have to go.

926
00:49:59.582 --> 00:50:02.033
And then I did my,
they were at school.

927
00:50:02.033 --> 00:50:03.931
I put my thing and I went.

928
00:50:05.347 --> 00:50:09.178
- Sandra was with an
agency in Belgravia

929
00:50:09.178 --> 00:50:14.183
and her next job was at
46 Lower Belgrave Street.

930
00:50:15.978 --> 00:50:18.567
- I know almost
nothing about Sandra.

931
00:50:18.567 --> 00:50:22.053
I met Sandra once because
I forgot some books

932
00:50:22.053 --> 00:50:25.263
and I rung up to
come to get them

933
00:50:25.263 --> 00:50:27.541
and she opened the door.

934
00:50:27.541 --> 00:50:28.956
She was not very big.

935
00:50:28.956 --> 00:50:30.993
She looked like a pleasant lady.

936
00:50:30.993 --> 00:50:33.720
I don't think she
say a word to me.

937
00:50:33.720 --> 00:50:37.068
She hold the book and I
say, "Thank you very much."

938
00:50:37.068 --> 00:50:39.691
She closed the
door. Nothing else.

939
00:50:39.691 --> 00:50:40.692
No contact.

940
00:50:41.969 --> 00:50:45.387
I would've loved to ask
how the children, no,

941
00:50:45.387 --> 00:50:47.596
they were at school, the babies.

942
00:50:49.667 --> 00:50:53.153
[gentle piano music]

943
00:50:53.153 --> 00:50:56.984
- It was very hard to get a
nanny, a good nanny in London

944
00:50:56.984 --> 00:50:59.366
for a rate that wasn't
too over the top

945
00:50:59.366 --> 00:51:02.749
because we know Lucan had
money issues and therefore

946
00:51:02.749 --> 00:51:05.407
you get this extraordinary
sort of revolving door

947
00:51:05.407 --> 00:51:07.305
of carers and au pairs

948
00:51:07.305 --> 00:51:12.069
and nannies that arrive
in the family house,

949
00:51:12.069 --> 00:51:15.002
some of whom leave, some
of whom aren't appropriate,

950
00:51:15.002 --> 00:51:16.797
some of whom don't
cut the mustard,

951
00:51:16.797 --> 00:51:18.523
some of whom Veronica
doesn't get on with,

952
00:51:18.523 --> 00:51:20.215
some of whom are
only temporary anyway

953
00:51:20.215 --> 00:51:23.356
until the agency can
get the right nanny.

954
00:51:23.356 --> 00:51:25.289
We know Francis, the older
girl didn't really get on

955
00:51:25.289 --> 00:51:27.256
with the nannies and
can you blame her?

956
00:51:27.256 --> 00:51:29.396
She had a different one
every week virtually.

957
00:51:29.396 --> 00:51:32.468
[soft music]

958
00:51:33.711 --> 00:51:36.886
- I became a penthouse
pet and a Bunny Girls,

959
00:51:36.886 --> 00:51:38.371
and I love it.

960
00:51:38.371 --> 00:51:40.269
I love the money I was making.

961
00:51:40.269 --> 00:51:42.547
It was just glamorous.

962
00:51:46.033 --> 00:51:48.588
I cannot remember
the exact date,

963
00:51:48.588 --> 00:51:52.143
but I know that I left weeks

964
00:51:52.143 --> 00:51:54.904
before everything happened.

965
00:51:56.458 --> 00:52:00.220
My boss said to me, "Have
you read the last article?"

966
00:52:00.220 --> 00:52:01.566
And I said, "No."

967
00:52:01.566 --> 00:52:03.603
He said, "You worked with
Lord Lucan, didn't you?"

968
00:52:03.603 --> 00:52:05.605
And he gave me the
paper and I read it.

969
00:52:09.609 --> 00:52:12.715
And I just walk out and
I walk in the street

970
00:52:12.715 --> 00:52:15.787
and I said, "It
could have been me."

971
00:52:16.788 --> 00:52:19.170
And then I
straightaway said, "No,

972
00:52:19.170 --> 00:52:22.346
"that would not have
happened if I did stay."

973
00:52:22.346 --> 00:52:25.625
And from this minute,
the guilt came.

974
00:52:25.625 --> 00:52:29.249
First of all, I thought it
was Veronica was killed,

975
00:52:29.249 --> 00:52:31.424
and that really shocked me.

976
00:52:31.424 --> 00:52:35.255
Then when I saw it was a
mother of a young baby,

977
00:52:35.255 --> 00:52:37.671
a young child, I felt guilty.

978
00:52:37.671 --> 00:52:40.364
And this guilt is
still here now,

979
00:52:40.364 --> 00:52:43.298
50 years on this guilt is here.

980
00:52:46.024 --> 00:52:47.371
It's all right.

981
00:52:47.371 --> 00:52:49.131
I have to cope, I live with it.

982
00:52:50.926 --> 00:52:54.171
[music box plays]

983
00:52:57.104 --> 00:52:59.314
- I mean, when you think
of the chain of events

984
00:52:59.314 --> 00:53:01.419
and how they're
affecting people's lives,

985
00:53:01.419 --> 00:53:03.904
the idea that a judge
saying there has

986
00:53:03.904 --> 00:53:06.459
to be a nanny in
situ all the time,

987
00:53:06.459 --> 00:53:09.945
and Sandra happily, innocently

988
00:53:09.945 --> 00:53:12.085
thinking, oh, what a great job.

989
00:53:12.085 --> 00:53:13.224
It's awful really.

990
00:53:14.501 --> 00:53:17.401
- When the police ask me
question, I said to them,

991
00:53:17.401 --> 00:53:18.850
"I feel guilty.

992
00:53:18.850 --> 00:53:22.095
"No way they would
ever murdered me."

993
00:53:22.095 --> 00:53:24.304
I never heard from
the children again.

994
00:53:26.720 --> 00:53:30.621
My guilt was so
great at the time.

995
00:53:32.726 --> 00:53:36.834
I felt that the children could
have been killed as well.

996
00:53:40.044 --> 00:53:44.221
[gentle piano music]

997
00:53:44.221 --> 00:53:45.981
- Sandra appeared happy
at her place of work,

998
00:53:45.981 --> 00:53:47.603
and she told her mother that.

999
00:53:47.603 --> 00:53:49.881
She'd ring her
mother every evening.

1000
00:53:49.881 --> 00:53:53.264
She would ring her boyfriend
and say how happy she was.

1001
00:53:53.264 --> 00:53:54.990
They probably felt very secure

1002
00:53:54.990 --> 00:53:58.235
and safe within the environment
at that address at the time.

1003
00:53:58.235 --> 00:54:01.134
Unfortunately, that was to
then to become a significant

1004
00:54:01.134 --> 00:54:02.687
and horrendous murder scene.

1005
00:54:02.687 --> 00:54:05.966
Less than half an hour after
they were watching a television

1006
00:54:05.966 --> 00:54:08.762
and she'd gone downstairs,
Sandra would've been killed.

1007
00:54:11.144 --> 00:54:14.527
- On the night it
happened with Lady Lucan

1008
00:54:14.527 --> 00:54:16.563
taken off to hospital,
desperately injured.

1009
00:54:16.563 --> 00:54:19.117
She had massive
wounds to her scalp.

1010
00:54:20.291 --> 00:54:22.845
Sandra Rivett dead
in the basement.

1011
00:54:22.845 --> 00:54:24.985
The children were completely
alone in the house

1012
00:54:24.985 --> 00:54:28.472
with this horrible scene
happening downstairs.

1013
00:54:28.472 --> 00:54:32.959
Lucan himself tried to
get some help for them.

1014
00:54:32.959 --> 00:54:35.099
He telephoned his mother

1015
00:54:35.099 --> 00:54:38.240
and said, could you
go to the house?

1016
00:54:38.240 --> 00:54:41.623
I believe that the only
person in the room with

1017
00:54:41.623 --> 00:54:46.524
the Dowager Countess of
Lucan was a police woman.

1018
00:54:46.524 --> 00:54:50.632
The police woman realised
Lucan was on the phone

1019
00:54:50.632 --> 00:54:53.359
and then just did nothing,
just sat there and listened.

1020
00:54:54.532 --> 00:54:57.570
- Lord Lucans mother
asked Lord Lucan whether

1021
00:54:57.570 --> 00:55:00.711
or not he wanted to
speak to the officer.

1022
00:55:00.711 --> 00:55:04.439
And his response was, "No,
tell the officer I will speak

1023
00:55:04.439 --> 00:55:05.785
"to her tomorrow."

1024
00:55:05.785 --> 00:55:08.719
And for me, that was where part

1025
00:55:08.719 --> 00:55:12.239
of the investigation was
going to be hindered.

1026
00:55:12.239 --> 00:55:14.932
You can't have your possible
suspect on the opposite end

1027
00:55:14.932 --> 00:55:17.659
of the phone who says,
"I'll ring you tomorrow."

1028
00:55:17.659 --> 00:55:20.731
Your natural instinct would
be, "Give me that phone.

1029
00:55:20.731 --> 00:55:23.630
"Hello, mate, you need
to wind your neck in

1030
00:55:23.630 --> 00:55:25.183
"and we need to talk."

1031
00:55:25.183 --> 00:55:26.909
That's just policing.

1032
00:55:26.909 --> 00:55:28.739
I don't think of any police
officer who would go,

1033
00:55:28.739 --> 00:55:30.706
"Yeah, I agree with that."

1034
00:55:30.706 --> 00:55:33.709
I don't understand why the
officer didn't do it, I'm sorry.

1035
00:55:35.849 --> 00:55:40.060
- I think the details
of how Sandra died

1036
00:55:40.060 --> 00:55:43.167
and the details of how
Lady Lucan was hurt

1037
00:55:43.167 --> 00:55:45.859
didn't really come out
in any great detail

1038
00:55:45.859 --> 00:55:48.310
until the inquest
into Sandra's death,

1039
00:55:48.310 --> 00:55:51.037
which was some
considerable time later.

1040
00:55:52.314 --> 00:55:54.696
The whole attention
of the police

1041
00:55:54.696 --> 00:55:56.249
and the press was supposed

1042
00:55:56.249 --> 00:55:59.528
to be the worldwide
hunt for Lord Lucan.

1043
00:55:59.528 --> 00:56:00.909
- I wish to interview him

1044
00:56:00.909 --> 00:56:03.463
and I'd like to interview
him as soon as possible.

1045
00:56:03.463 --> 00:56:06.535
And if any person is helping him

1046
00:56:06.535 --> 00:56:08.848
or assisting him,
we'd like them to

1047
00:56:08.848 --> 00:56:10.815
or have any knowledge
of his whereabouts.

1048
00:56:10.815 --> 00:56:12.369
We'd like them to let us know.

1049
00:56:13.818 --> 00:56:15.441
- After Lady Lucan ran off

1050
00:56:15.441 --> 00:56:18.582
to the pub screaming
and shouting,

1051
00:56:19.755 --> 00:56:22.689
and Lucan realised that
he had to get away.

1052
00:56:22.689 --> 00:56:26.072
He into his car, the car
that he had hoped to carry,

1053
00:56:26.072 --> 00:56:30.421
Lady Lucan's body away
in, and he fled the scene.

1054
00:56:30.421 --> 00:56:33.528
And the only indication of

1055
00:56:33.528 --> 00:56:38.429
what he did then comes from
the late Susan Maxwell Scott,

1056
00:56:38.429 --> 00:56:41.087
who days later reported

1057
00:56:41.087 --> 00:56:43.814
that he had turned
up at her house on

1058
00:56:43.814 --> 00:56:45.505
the night of the killing.

1059
00:56:45.505 --> 00:56:46.782
- He looked a bit dishevelled,

1060
00:56:46.782 --> 00:56:48.508
may have had a bit
of blood on him.

1061
00:56:48.508 --> 00:56:51.097
He asked if he could
get a pen and paper,

1062
00:56:51.097 --> 00:56:53.064
and he wanted to write
a couple of letters.

1063
00:56:53.064 --> 00:56:54.065
He then left.

1064
00:56:55.273 --> 00:56:57.931
- One of the letters,
went to Bill Shand Kydd,

1065
00:56:57.931 --> 00:56:59.588
his brother-in-law.

1066
00:56:59.588 --> 00:57:02.660
Bill was a very, very
close friend of his.

1067
00:57:02.660 --> 00:57:05.491
- No, I obviously can't divulge
the contents of the letter.

1068
00:57:05.491 --> 00:57:10.357
All I can say is that
it confirmed the story,

1069
00:57:10.357 --> 00:57:12.463
which he had told his mother

1070
00:57:12.463 --> 00:57:13.982
that there had been an
intruder in the house.

1071
00:57:13.982 --> 00:57:16.502
Apart from that, I can't
divulge any of the contents.

1072
00:57:16.502 --> 00:57:18.952
- I think he used the
phrase, it's been a night

1073
00:57:18.952 --> 00:57:21.645
of unbelievable coincidences.

1074
00:57:21.645 --> 00:57:26.684
And he set the scene
for what is his version,

1075
00:57:27.823 --> 00:57:29.342
his alibi for what
happened that night,

1076
00:57:29.342 --> 00:57:33.035
or rather his defence for
what happened that night.

1077
00:57:33.035 --> 00:57:34.554
- And he saw the intruder?
- Yes.

1078
00:57:34.554 --> 00:57:35.659
He disturbed the intruder.

1079
00:57:35.659 --> 00:57:36.936
- What sort of a man was he?

1080
00:57:36.936 --> 00:57:39.766
- Generous man. A
very gentle man.

1081
00:57:40.733 --> 00:57:41.872
Very much a family man.

1082
00:57:41.872 --> 00:57:44.564
He's really devoted
to his children.

1083
00:57:44.564 --> 00:57:47.153
They are the most important
thing in his life.

1084
00:57:49.742 --> 00:57:52.814
- When I interrupted the
fight at Lower Belgrave Street

1085
00:57:52.814 --> 00:57:57.715
and the man left, Veronica
accused me of having hired him,

1086
00:57:57.715 --> 00:58:00.580
I took her upstairs and
sent Francis up to bed

1087
00:58:00.580 --> 00:58:02.824
and tried to clean her up.

1088
00:58:02.824 --> 00:58:05.033
She laid Doggo for a bit,

1089
00:58:05.033 --> 00:58:08.001
and when I was in the
bathroom, left the house.

1090
00:58:09.313 --> 00:58:12.454
The circumstantial evidence
against me is strong in

1091
00:58:12.454 --> 00:58:15.526
that V will say it
was all my doing.

1092
00:58:15.526 --> 00:58:17.424
I will also lie Doggo for a bit,

1093
00:58:17.424 --> 00:58:20.531
but I'm also concerned
for the children.

1094
00:58:20.531 --> 00:58:23.569
If you can manage it, I
want them to live with you.

1095
00:58:24.915 --> 00:58:27.193
- To use the term, the
circumstantial evidence against

1096
00:58:27.193 --> 00:58:28.401
me is strong.

1097
00:58:28.401 --> 00:58:29.954
It doesn't sit right with me.

1098
00:58:29.954 --> 00:58:33.337
It doesn't feel like the thing
a normal person would say.

1099
00:58:33.337 --> 00:58:36.236
- He said to Bill Shand Kydd
that he was going to run away

1100
00:58:36.236 --> 00:58:38.273
and lie doggo for a while.

1101
00:58:38.273 --> 00:58:40.827
That phrase has
haunted me for 50 years

1102
00:58:40.827 --> 00:58:44.659
because lying doggo for a
while is not I'm gonna go

1103
00:58:44.659 --> 00:58:46.143
and kill myself.

1104
00:58:46.143 --> 00:58:47.627
It's I'm gonna go

1105
00:58:47.627 --> 00:58:50.388
and hide under the bed clothes
until somebody finds me.

1106
00:58:50.388 --> 00:58:52.529
And it's just, he's
been hiding very well

1107
00:58:53.322 --> 00:58:54.600
for five decades.

1108
00:58:59.915 --> 00:59:03.022
- On the 9th of November,
police had received information

1109
00:59:03.022 --> 00:59:06.543
that the Ford Corsair, that
Michael Stoop had loaned

1110
00:59:06.543 --> 00:59:09.166
to Lord Lucan had been
found in Newhaven.

1111
00:59:10.616 --> 00:59:13.308
The individuals who came across
the vehicle said it had been

1112
00:59:13.308 --> 00:59:16.242
parked between five
and 8:00 AM that day.

1113
00:59:16.242 --> 00:59:19.486
The vehicle was subsequently
found by the officers locked,

1114
00:59:19.486 --> 00:59:21.834
which would imply
that whoever was in it

1115
00:59:21.834 --> 00:59:25.216
may have intended to
come back to the vehicle.

1116
00:59:25.216 --> 00:59:27.840
- The natural
suggestion would be

1117
00:59:27.840 --> 00:59:31.429
that he then got on the
Newhaven to Dieppe Ferry

1118
00:59:31.429 --> 00:59:33.224
and escaped to France.

1119
00:59:33.224 --> 00:59:34.778
But the reality is

1120
00:59:34.778 --> 00:59:38.126
that the police questioned
just every passenger they could

1121
00:59:38.126 --> 00:59:43.165
find who had made that crossing
on the day after the murder.

1122
00:59:44.442 --> 00:59:46.755
And they could find nobody
among the passengers

1123
00:59:46.755 --> 00:59:49.309
or crew who saw

1124
00:59:49.309 --> 00:59:53.831
or remembered a six foot
tall former guards officer

1125
00:59:53.831 --> 00:59:55.868
with a very big bushy moustache

1126
00:59:55.868 --> 00:59:59.975
and talking in a very
plummy, aristocratic accent.

1127
00:59:59.975 --> 01:00:02.909
He wasn't somebody you
could mistake in a crowd.

1128
01:00:03.841 --> 01:00:05.809
I think the police believed

1129
01:00:05.809 --> 01:00:09.329
that the car was left at
Newhaven as a red herring.

1130
01:00:09.329 --> 01:00:13.023
Nobody would know apart
from Susan Maxwell Scott.

1131
01:00:13.023 --> 01:00:18.062
And and her evidence was
just never forthcoming.

1132
01:00:19.374 --> 01:00:21.825
- I would think that the
probability is that he is alive,

1133
01:00:22.998 --> 01:00:26.415
but I have no knowledge,
no foundation for that.

1134
01:00:26.415 --> 01:00:28.728
It's just a feeling.
I think he's alive.

1135
01:00:30.040 --> 01:00:32.974
- I don't think there's
anybody, certainly in London

1136
01:00:32.974 --> 01:00:34.527
that didn't know
about this case.

1137
01:00:34.527 --> 01:00:38.013
It would've been front page,
back page news, everything.

1138
01:00:38.013 --> 01:00:40.291
But that sometimes
can work against you

1139
01:00:40.291 --> 01:00:42.466
because you're gonna get lots

1140
01:00:42.466 --> 01:00:44.123
of sightings coming
from all over the world.

1141
01:00:44.123 --> 01:00:45.745
They were coming from Australia,

1142
01:00:45.745 --> 01:00:48.679
they were coming from
Europe, certainly in the UK.

1143
01:00:48.679 --> 01:00:51.578
So that would've made
it even more difficult.

1144
01:00:51.578 --> 01:00:54.512
- In the days and
weeks after the murder,

1145
01:00:54.512 --> 01:00:57.239
the media generally
were full of stories

1146
01:00:57.239 --> 01:01:00.760
of this worldwide hunt for
the missing Lord Lucan,

1147
01:01:00.760 --> 01:01:02.520
it was a great headline.

1148
01:01:02.520 --> 01:01:05.144
The truth of the matter
is that Roy Ranson,

1149
01:01:05.144 --> 01:01:07.767
the detective in
charge of the case,

1150
01:01:07.767 --> 01:01:10.390
never went on a worldwide hunt

1151
01:01:10.390 --> 01:01:15.430
because he had no evidence
of where Lucan might be.

1152
01:01:16.742 --> 01:01:18.571
- 14 years ago when I
was in the Met, I believe

1153
01:01:18.571 --> 01:01:22.161
that they would've identified
where Lord Lucan was

1154
01:01:22.161 --> 01:01:24.853
and he would've been
arrested within days

1155
01:01:24.853 --> 01:01:26.752
or even weeks at the maximum

1156
01:01:26.752 --> 01:01:29.755
because there's so much
stuff now that we have to do

1157
01:01:29.755 --> 01:01:32.136
that the moment you have
your phone in your pocket,

1158
01:01:32.136 --> 01:01:33.690
it's pinging away on

1159
01:01:33.690 --> 01:01:35.899
where you are from the moment
he left the scene from the

1160
01:01:35.899 --> 01:01:38.487
moment he ended up
out in Newhaven,

1161
01:01:38.487 --> 01:01:40.697
all that information
would be downloaded

1162
01:01:40.697 --> 01:01:43.458
and would have all that
information in a matter

1163
01:01:43.458 --> 01:01:45.771
of 72 hours max.

1164
01:01:45.771 --> 01:01:47.427
So Roy Ranson

1165
01:01:47.427 --> 01:01:51.397
and his team were
hamstrung by the lack

1166
01:01:51.397 --> 01:01:52.709
of technology

1167
01:01:52.709 --> 01:01:54.089
and all of those things

1168
01:01:54.089 --> 01:01:57.575
that an SIO now has
to bring to bear.

1169
01:01:57.575 --> 01:01:59.716
If you're lucky in
this day and age,

1170
01:01:59.716 --> 01:02:02.546
you could have solved
that within 72 hours.

1171
01:02:02.546 --> 01:02:04.893
And if you're not, maybe
in a couple of weeks.

1172
01:02:06.377 --> 01:02:09.518
[tense music]

1173
01:02:09.518 --> 01:02:11.658
- The most plausible
thing I think,

1174
01:02:11.658 --> 01:02:16.698
and supported by the
evidence, is that Lord Lucan

1175
01:02:17.423 --> 01:02:21.496
was absolutely enraged

1176
01:02:22.600 --> 01:02:27.191
that he had no
control over Veronica.

1177
01:02:27.191 --> 01:02:29.884
He wanted custody of
his children, basically.

1178
01:02:29.884 --> 01:02:32.852
He wanted to win
and he was losing.

1179
01:02:33.957 --> 01:02:35.924
He went through an
escalation period.

1180
01:02:35.924 --> 01:02:38.789
He started to fantasise
about how he was gonna win.

1181
01:02:38.789 --> 01:02:41.343
He was gonna win by killing her.

1182
01:02:41.343 --> 01:02:42.759
He planned to kill her.

1183
01:02:42.759 --> 01:02:44.691
He went round there
to execute the plan.

1184
01:02:44.691 --> 01:02:46.659
He killed the wrong woman.

1185
01:02:46.659 --> 01:02:51.698
A typical intimate partner
homicide that went wrong.

1186
01:02:54.046 --> 01:02:58.291
- I think the murder
was very premeditated.

1187
01:02:58.291 --> 01:03:01.191
There were a number
of indications that
it was premeditated.

1188
01:03:03.676 --> 01:03:05.574
The week before it happened,

1189
01:03:05.574 --> 01:03:09.786
he had custody of the children
for a weekend or an evening,

1190
01:03:09.786 --> 01:03:13.720
and he talked to them about
their new nanny, Sandra,

1191
01:03:13.720 --> 01:03:16.068
and they told him
all about Sandra

1192
01:03:16.068 --> 01:03:18.380
and what a nice girl she was.

1193
01:03:18.380 --> 01:03:21.901
So he said, "I suppose your
nanny has a boyfriend?"

1194
01:03:21.901 --> 01:03:26.319
And the oldest, Lucan girl
said, "She's got a boyfriend."

1195
01:03:26.319 --> 01:03:27.700
and giggled.

1196
01:03:27.700 --> 01:03:31.738
And I think said, "We
saw her kissing him."

1197
01:03:31.738 --> 01:03:35.846
and Lucan then said, "Does the
boyfriend take Sandra out?"

1198
01:03:35.846 --> 01:03:37.779
And the children said, "Oh yes,

1199
01:03:37.779 --> 01:03:40.057
"she goes out every
Thursday night

1200
01:03:40.057 --> 01:03:42.025
"because that's her day off."

1201
01:03:42.025 --> 01:03:45.235
It was the very next
Thursday night that Lucan

1202
01:03:45.235 --> 01:03:48.307
turned up in the house
with his intent to kill.

1203
01:03:48.307 --> 01:03:51.241
So it was certainly premeditated
to the point where he knew

1204
01:03:51.241 --> 01:03:53.381
that the nanny would
be out of the house

1205
01:03:53.381 --> 01:03:55.728
and Lady Lucan would be alone

1206
01:03:55.728 --> 01:03:59.111
and he was most likely to
be able to kill his wife.

1207
01:04:00.733 --> 01:04:02.010
- It was common knowledge

1208
01:04:02.010 --> 01:04:05.358
that Sandra normally had
the Thursday night off.

1209
01:04:05.358 --> 01:04:07.015
But on this
occasion, she decided

1210
01:04:07.015 --> 01:04:09.569
that she wanted to change it.

1211
01:04:09.569 --> 01:04:13.297
We know before the attack
she'd spoken to her boyfriend,

1212
01:04:13.297 --> 01:04:15.610
they talked about
meeting up the next day.

1213
01:04:20.857 --> 01:04:23.894
[dramatic music]

1214
01:04:23.894 --> 01:04:26.517
- The murder happened
on the evening

1215
01:04:26.517 --> 01:04:29.451
of the 7th of November, 1974.

1216
01:04:29.451 --> 01:04:34.491
As ever with this, there
are very few hard facts.

1217
01:04:35.664 --> 01:04:37.735
We don't even know
what time it happened

1218
01:04:37.735 --> 01:04:40.014
because there are
conflicting reports.

1219
01:04:41.049 --> 01:04:43.603
While Veronica,
two of her children

1220
01:04:43.603 --> 01:04:47.780
and Sandra were all upstairs
in the main bedroom,

1221
01:04:47.780 --> 01:04:50.334
Veronica's bedroom, they
were all on the bed together

1222
01:04:50.334 --> 01:04:53.027
watching the $6 million man.

1223
01:04:53.027 --> 01:04:57.410
And on the floor above was
Francis, the elder child

1224
01:04:57.410 --> 01:04:59.999
who was watching
top of the pops.

1225
01:04:59.999 --> 01:05:04.245
At some point between

1226
01:05:04.245 --> 01:05:06.903
25 to nine and five to nine,

1227
01:05:06.903 --> 01:05:11.355
Sandra Rivett went down into
the basement to make tea.

1228
01:05:12.529 --> 01:05:15.118
There was a light
bulb had been removed,

1229
01:05:15.118 --> 01:05:17.327
so she was in the dark.

1230
01:05:17.327 --> 01:05:19.087
She went down those stairs

1231
01:05:19.087 --> 01:05:22.159
and at the bottom of
the stairs was attacked.

1232
01:05:22.159 --> 01:05:25.611
[dramatic music crescendos]

1233
01:05:25.611 --> 01:05:28.476
- I think maybe after the
first two or three blows.

1234
01:05:28.476 --> 01:05:29.615
And she may have screamed.

1235
01:05:29.615 --> 01:05:30.892
He may have thought
this is not her,

1236
01:05:30.892 --> 01:05:32.238
but he could not
have stopped then.

1237
01:05:32.238 --> 01:05:35.828
He couldn't say, "Oh,
sorry, wrong person."

1238
01:05:35.828 --> 01:05:37.347
So he had to kill her.

1239
01:05:39.418 --> 01:05:42.939
- Sandra collapses in a
pool of blood and Lord Lucan

1240
01:05:42.939 --> 01:05:44.561
scoops up the body

1241
01:05:44.561 --> 01:05:48.254
and puts it into the big sack
that he's come prepared with.

1242
01:05:48.254 --> 01:05:51.326
Now, it is entirely possible

1243
01:05:51.326 --> 01:05:53.535
that he doesn't know
he's killed Sandra.

1244
01:05:53.535 --> 01:05:55.537
He thinks he's
killed Lady Lucan.

1245
01:05:56.953 --> 01:05:59.921
And so he goes off to
wash off the blood,

1246
01:05:59.921 --> 01:06:02.096
leaving the body in the sack.

1247
01:06:02.096 --> 01:06:05.582
All he can see of the body
is her rocked up skirt

1248
01:06:05.582 --> 01:06:08.343
and underwear, which could
well have been his wife's.

1249
01:06:08.343 --> 01:06:09.896
So he goes upstairs to

1250
01:06:09.896 --> 01:06:12.658
where there is a light in
the ground floor, cloak room,

1251
01:06:12.658 --> 01:06:15.281
and that's where he starts
to wash the blood off.

1252
01:06:15.281 --> 01:06:18.457
And it's at that point that
he hears a noise outside

1253
01:06:18.457 --> 01:06:21.460
and he throws open the
door, and there's his wife.

1254
01:06:21.460 --> 01:06:23.876
The woman who he
firmly believed at

1255
01:06:23.876 --> 01:06:27.017
that stage was downstairs
dead in a sack.

1256
01:06:27.017 --> 01:06:30.434
[water Trickling]
[tense music]

1257
01:06:31.297 --> 01:06:33.437
He's totally shocked by this.

1258
01:06:33.437 --> 01:06:35.681
And he attacks Lady
Lucan viciously.

1259
01:06:35.681 --> 01:06:38.856
I mean, he's got this
lead pipe in his hand

1260
01:06:38.856 --> 01:06:41.825
and he's still swinging
his pipe at her.

1261
01:06:41.825 --> 01:06:44.379
He hits her across the
head several times.

1262
01:06:44.379 --> 01:06:46.864
She wouldn't have had
the slightest chance

1263
01:06:46.864 --> 01:06:49.798
or knowledge of what
was happening to her.

1264
01:06:49.798 --> 01:06:52.836
- It is so hard to know
what was actually going

1265
01:06:52.836 --> 01:06:54.458
through his head at that point.

1266
01:06:54.458 --> 01:06:59.498
But what I would theorise
is that he sounded

1267
01:07:00.050 --> 01:07:01.638
blood hot angry.

1268
01:07:01.638 --> 01:07:03.502
And after that, there
might have been a moment

1269
01:07:03.502 --> 01:07:07.437
where he went, "Oh
God, what have I done?"

1270
01:07:07.437 --> 01:07:09.853
- Upstairs, he's in
a narrow corridor.

1271
01:07:09.853 --> 01:07:11.786
He's facing Lady Lucan.

1272
01:07:11.786 --> 01:07:14.030
And although he hits
her without enough force

1273
01:07:14.030 --> 01:07:18.931
to knock her out, she's a
wiry, feisty young woman.

1274
01:07:18.931 --> 01:07:21.244
And she's fighting for her life.

1275
01:07:21.244 --> 01:07:24.350
She scratches him, they're
wrestling together.

1276
01:07:24.350 --> 01:07:27.112
And in the end, she reaches down

1277
01:07:27.112 --> 01:07:30.770
and she grabs hold of his
testicles and squeezes

1278
01:07:30.770 --> 01:07:33.187
and twists as hard as she can.

1279
01:07:33.187 --> 01:07:36.914
And Lucan collapses
to the floor with her.

1280
01:07:36.914 --> 01:07:39.365
They slide down
the walls together.

1281
01:07:39.365 --> 01:07:42.127
And Lady Lucan is so clever.

1282
01:07:42.127 --> 01:07:44.646
She says, "What are
you doing, John?

1283
01:07:44.646 --> 01:07:47.132
"What on earth are you doing?"

1284
01:07:47.132 --> 01:07:50.100
And he mumbles incoherently.

1285
01:07:50.100 --> 01:07:52.171
And she says, "Where's Sandra?

1286
01:07:53.241 --> 01:07:54.760
"Where's my nanny?"

1287
01:07:54.760 --> 01:07:57.487
And he says, "I think I've
killed, I've killed your nanny."

1288
01:08:02.008 --> 01:08:04.390
- They went upstairs
to the bedroom

1289
01:08:04.390 --> 01:08:08.532
and he rang out a towel
to clean her up a bit.

1290
01:08:08.532 --> 01:08:12.571
We know he was there because
Francis, his daughter, saw him.

1291
01:08:12.571 --> 01:08:14.538
But when he was in the bathroom

1292
01:08:14.538 --> 01:08:16.540
cleaning up the
towel and everything,

1293
01:08:16.540 --> 01:08:19.819
Veronica ran down the
stairs, ran out the house,

1294
01:08:19.819 --> 01:08:22.270
ran up the street to the
The Plumber's Arms pub,

1295
01:08:22.270 --> 01:08:23.927
and burst into the bar.

1296
01:08:23.927 --> 01:08:26.032
This was 10 to 10

1297
01:08:27.379 --> 01:08:30.485
and said, "Help, help my
husband's murdered my nanny."

1298
01:08:30.485 --> 01:08:33.350
And from that point, it
became a police matter.

1299
01:08:33.350 --> 01:08:34.800
They descended on the house.

1300
01:08:37.009 --> 01:08:39.632
[sombre music]

1301
01:08:47.364 --> 01:08:49.987
- Lady Lucan
attended the inquest,

1302
01:08:49.987 --> 01:08:54.544
and her role was to
give an account of

1303
01:08:54.544 --> 01:08:58.099
what happened to her
in terms of the attack,

1304
01:08:58.099 --> 01:09:00.929
which resulted in her
receiving those injuries.

1305
01:09:00.929 --> 01:09:03.829
The problem in this case
is that at the time,

1306
01:09:03.829 --> 01:09:05.969
the law did not allow her

1307
01:09:05.969 --> 01:09:10.387
to talk about her husband's
attack on Sandra Rivett

1308
01:09:10.387 --> 01:09:13.183
because at that time
a spouse couldn't give

1309
01:09:13.183 --> 01:09:14.978
evidence against the other.

1310
01:09:14.978 --> 01:09:17.049
So all that Lady
Lucan could talk about

1311
01:09:17.049 --> 01:09:18.326
was the attack on her.

1312
01:09:18.326 --> 01:09:21.743
She couldn't, in any
way, give evidence about

1313
01:09:21.743 --> 01:09:25.126
what Lord Lucan said when
she managed to calm him down

1314
01:09:25.126 --> 01:09:28.647
and he actually confessed
that he had killed Sandra.

1315
01:09:28.647 --> 01:09:30.166
She could not give
that evidence.

1316
01:09:30.166 --> 01:09:32.927
But that law has
subsequently changed

1317
01:09:32.927 --> 01:09:36.793
where a spouse can give evidence
against the other spouse in

1318
01:09:36.793 --> 01:09:38.415
relation to any offence

1319
01:09:38.415 --> 01:09:40.762
that they may have
committed against them.

1320
01:09:40.762 --> 01:09:44.939
- At the inquest,
which was June, 1975,

1321
01:09:44.939 --> 01:09:48.977
Sandra became more striking
to my mind, really,

1322
01:09:48.977 --> 01:09:51.221
because you can understand the
initial flurry around Lucan

1323
01:09:51.221 --> 01:09:52.947
and the excitement.

1324
01:09:52.947 --> 01:09:54.949
This very unlikely murderer.

1325
01:09:56.122 --> 01:09:58.366
Sandra's family were there

1326
01:09:58.366 --> 01:10:03.129
and her father, Albert said
to the press, you know this,

1327
01:10:03.129 --> 01:10:05.235
"This is all meant to
be about my daughter."

1328
01:10:06.374 --> 01:10:09.343
And her Aunt Vera
said the same thing,

1329
01:10:09.343 --> 01:10:11.586
but more, she was stronger.

1330
01:10:11.586 --> 01:10:14.589
"My niece is caught in the
crossfire between the Lucans

1331
01:10:14.589 --> 01:10:17.109
"and it's all about the Lucans."

1332
01:10:17.109 --> 01:10:19.456
Veronica had had a
tough time as well,

1333
01:10:19.456 --> 01:10:24.461
but Sandra's family is where
the sympathy should be going.

1334
01:10:25.151 --> 01:10:26.429
- It's just the dad

1335
01:10:26.429 --> 01:10:29.397
and the aunt sitting
at the back quietly.

1336
01:10:29.397 --> 01:10:32.883
And what they reflect on is

1337
01:10:32.883 --> 01:10:35.817
why wasn't this about Sandra?

1338
01:10:35.817 --> 01:10:38.130
Why was she completely ignored?

1339
01:10:38.130 --> 01:10:40.650
And that is devastating

1340
01:10:40.650 --> 01:10:45.620
because within that you
can hear the frustration,

1341
01:10:46.690 --> 01:10:49.624
the pain, and I
reckon the rage of

1342
01:10:49.624 --> 01:10:54.388
"How dare you ignore
my child, my niece,

1343
01:10:54.388 --> 01:10:57.494
"the victim of this story
as if she doesn't matter."

1344
01:11:00.221 --> 01:11:03.535
- I saw the crime
scene photographs

1345
01:11:03.535 --> 01:11:07.815
and she had taken blows

1346
01:11:07.815 --> 01:11:12.095
to her head, which were
clearly unsurvivable.

1347
01:11:13.338 --> 01:11:15.478
I am no medical expert.

1348
01:11:15.478 --> 01:11:18.377
But you could not have
survived the beating

1349
01:11:18.377 --> 01:11:19.965
that Lord Lucan gave her.

1350
01:11:22.657 --> 01:11:27.421
At the inquest, the main
source of interest was not

1351
01:11:27.421 --> 01:11:30.216
how Sandra died.

1352
01:11:30.216 --> 01:11:32.598
It was where was Lord Lucan

1353
01:11:32.598 --> 01:11:36.740
and what was the jury going
to say in their final verdict?

1354
01:11:36.740 --> 01:11:41.400
Because the inquest turned
into the trial of Lord Lucan.

1355
01:11:41.400 --> 01:11:43.678
Sandra was virtually forgotten.

1356
01:11:45.059 --> 01:11:47.544
- And so it became a bit
of a circus to some degree.

1357
01:11:49.235 --> 01:11:51.617
[tense music]

1358
01:11:53.930 --> 01:11:55.241
The media were there.

1359
01:11:55.241 --> 01:11:58.175
People turned up in
their fine regalia.

1360
01:12:03.560 --> 01:12:04.803
You had Lady Lucan

1361
01:12:04.803 --> 01:12:06.908
who was still suffering
from her injuries.

1362
01:12:06.908 --> 01:12:09.221
She had a hat that she wore
every day to hide them.

1363
01:12:10.498 --> 01:12:13.018
- Lord Lucan had hit her
over the head three times

1364
01:12:13.018 --> 01:12:16.124
with the metal bar with
which he'd killed Sandra.

1365
01:12:16.124 --> 01:12:20.922
And she had vertical gashes
running down her scalp like

1366
01:12:20.922 --> 01:12:25.858
this deep bone revealing gashes.

1367
01:12:25.858 --> 01:12:28.205
And she was still scarred

1368
01:12:28.205 --> 01:12:31.485
and her hair was
completely wrecked by this.

1369
01:12:31.485 --> 01:12:33.038
So she was in the habit

1370
01:12:33.038 --> 01:12:36.973
of wearing tight
turban hats each day.

1371
01:12:38.319 --> 01:12:40.045
Lady Lucan's hat attire

1372
01:12:40.045 --> 01:12:43.945
became a sort of a fashion
item in the papers.

1373
01:12:43.945 --> 01:12:46.120
- Nine times out of 10
when you have a inquest

1374
01:12:46.120 --> 01:12:49.675
and a coroner obviously
involved, nobody knows about it.

1375
01:12:49.675 --> 01:12:51.988
But this one was
like everyday news

1376
01:12:51.988 --> 01:12:53.541
and public could have attended.

1377
01:12:53.541 --> 01:12:56.061
It was a circus and I don't
think that that necessarily

1378
01:12:57.338 --> 01:13:01.687
allowed Sandra's family
to find some closure.

1379
01:13:04.103 --> 01:13:07.659
The postmortem in relation to
Sandra Rivett basically showed

1380
01:13:07.659 --> 01:13:10.247
that she had received,
at least is it nine blows

1381
01:13:10.247 --> 01:13:12.629
to the head and face.

1382
01:13:12.629 --> 01:13:15.287
There was significant
blunt trauma

1383
01:13:15.287 --> 01:13:18.877
and ultimately she died
as a result of those blows

1384
01:13:18.877 --> 01:13:21.397
as well as asphyxiation
from her own blood.

1385
01:13:22.467 --> 01:13:24.641
- It's what we call overkill.

1386
01:13:24.641 --> 01:13:27.748
So this was gratuitous in a way.

1387
01:13:27.748 --> 01:13:32.753
It was more violence than was
necessary just to cause death.

1388
01:13:34.064 --> 01:13:37.171
Plausibly, he probably thought

1389
01:13:37.171 --> 01:13:39.587
that it was Veronica
that he was attacking.

1390
01:13:39.587 --> 01:13:44.040
She was the one he felt
all this rage towards,

1391
01:13:44.040 --> 01:13:46.387
that rage was pent up.

1392
01:13:46.387 --> 01:13:50.046
And because it was such
gratuitous violence,

1393
01:13:50.046 --> 01:13:53.221
this killer is not only

1394
01:13:53.221 --> 01:13:56.017
and simply performing
a homicide,

1395
01:13:56.017 --> 01:13:58.744
they're getting
some emotional kind

1396
01:13:58.744 --> 01:14:00.643
of benefit from this as well.

1397
01:14:02.058 --> 01:14:04.060
- The coroner's conclusion,

1398
01:14:04.060 --> 01:14:07.166
and this was quite
rare, he basically said

1399
01:14:07.166 --> 01:14:10.446
that Lord Lucan was responsible
for Sandra Rivett's murder

1400
01:14:10.446 --> 01:14:13.069
and that is something
that was unheard of.

1401
01:14:13.069 --> 01:14:15.899
And it created a
bit of a backlash

1402
01:14:15.899 --> 01:14:18.488
because the whole point
of the inquest was

1403
01:14:18.488 --> 01:14:21.974
to establish the circumstances
surrounding someone's death.

1404
01:14:21.974 --> 01:14:24.667
Was it an accident?
Was it deliberate?

1405
01:14:24.667 --> 01:14:27.946
But the coroner in this
case went beyond that

1406
01:14:27.946 --> 01:14:32.537
and actually indicated that
Lord Lucan was the person

1407
01:14:32.537 --> 01:14:34.884
who had murdered Sandra Rivett.

1408
01:14:34.884 --> 01:14:37.852
[sombre music]

1409
01:14:37.852 --> 01:14:39.475
- What's interesting is because

1410
01:14:39.475 --> 01:14:42.581
of the fanciful nature in the
way this story was written up,

1411
01:14:42.581 --> 01:14:45.308
the press behaved in a way

1412
01:14:45.308 --> 01:14:49.105
that I think disrespected
the death of Sandra Rivett.

1413
01:14:51.797 --> 01:14:55.214
There was a case of the
newspaper report offering a case

1414
01:14:55.214 --> 01:14:59.425
of champagne to a
reader who came up

1415
01:14:59.425 --> 01:15:02.325
with the most inventive

1416
01:15:02.325 --> 01:15:07.364
or fanciful end for Lord
Lucan I.E, where is he now?

1417
01:15:08.227 --> 01:15:11.334
Give this horror story an end

1418
01:15:11.334 --> 01:15:14.371
and we will give you
a crate of champagne.

1419
01:15:14.371 --> 01:15:18.272
So they're turning it
really into a drama

1420
01:15:18.272 --> 01:15:20.964
and it had become,
yeah, a fairy story,

1421
01:15:20.964 --> 01:15:24.105
a horror fairy story,
a grim fairy story.

1422
01:15:26.073 --> 01:15:28.316
- The Fleet Street reporters

1423
01:15:28.316 --> 01:15:32.286
and I speak as someone
who was proudly one

1424
01:15:32.286 --> 01:15:33.736
for many reasons,

1425
01:15:34.875 --> 01:15:37.533
are a pretty unfeeling

1426
01:15:37.533 --> 01:15:42.572
and pretty nasty pack of people.

1427
01:15:43.918 --> 01:15:46.749
A lot of my former colleagues
are now snarling at me.

1428
01:15:46.749 --> 01:15:47.819
But it's true.

1429
01:15:49.268 --> 01:15:53.410
If you are dealing with a
constant stream of nastiness,

1430
01:15:53.410 --> 01:15:56.206
one of the ways of dealing
with that is to laugh it off

1431
01:15:56.206 --> 01:15:58.277
and make gallows jokes about it.

1432
01:15:58.277 --> 01:16:02.592
So I can't deny that the death

1433
01:16:02.592 --> 01:16:07.148
of Sandra Rivett would
not have been greeted by

1434
01:16:07.148 --> 01:16:11.670
the Fleet Street Crime reporting
pack with great sympathy

1435
01:16:11.670 --> 01:16:13.603
and sorrow.

1436
01:16:13.603 --> 01:16:16.433
That's not to say that
on a personal level,

1437
01:16:16.433 --> 01:16:19.885
I, or many of my then colleagues

1438
01:16:19.885 --> 01:16:22.474
would not have had
every sympathy for her

1439
01:16:22.474 --> 01:16:27.168
because she was just so unlucky.

1440
01:16:27.168 --> 01:16:30.896
But when you are in
that situation now,

1441
01:16:30.896 --> 01:16:35.625
50 years ago, the
intense competition

1442
01:16:35.625 --> 01:16:39.387
of Fleet Street, and I'm
talking really intense.

1443
01:16:41.079 --> 01:16:44.461
You were going through a time
in the 70s when she died,

1444
01:16:44.461 --> 01:16:48.224
when both the
police and the press

1445
01:16:48.224 --> 01:16:50.744
were not at their finest,

1446
01:16:50.744 --> 01:16:54.955
their morals were
distinctly un-fine.

1447
01:16:54.955 --> 01:16:57.785
It's regrettable,
but it was how it was

1448
01:16:57.785 --> 01:17:00.961
and it wasn't driven
by anyone's malice,

1449
01:17:00.961 --> 01:17:05.690
it was driven by a need
as reporters and media

1450
01:17:05.690 --> 01:17:09.970
and editors would've seen
it at the time by a need to

1451
01:17:10.798 --> 01:17:13.801
inform and keep circulation.

1452
01:17:13.801 --> 01:17:17.702
I mean, you know, it was
a very competitive era.

1453
01:17:19.635 --> 01:17:23.052
- I think the police
investigation was
pretty terrible.

1454
01:17:23.052 --> 01:17:24.916
There was quite a lot
of insinuation about

1455
01:17:24.916 --> 01:17:26.642
how she had a lot of boyfriends.

1456
01:17:28.298 --> 01:17:31.094
- She clearly liked
having a boyfriend.

1457
01:17:32.268 --> 01:17:35.064
Is that a crime to like
having a boyfriend?

1458
01:17:35.064 --> 01:17:36.824
I mean, it's a
confusing world, the 60s

1459
01:17:36.824 --> 01:17:39.033
and 70s where women
have to have a man,

1460
01:17:39.033 --> 01:17:41.070
but they have to
have a man according

1461
01:17:41.070 --> 01:17:44.694
to the very narrow social
expectations of the day

1462
01:17:44.694 --> 01:17:48.940
and the way Sandra did it
outside of wedlock or divorced.

1463
01:17:48.940 --> 01:17:49.803
Wow.

1464
01:17:50.631 --> 01:17:52.115
And a slight overlap.

1465
01:17:52.115 --> 01:17:53.703
I mean, how many men
have had an overlap?

1466
01:17:53.703 --> 01:17:56.430
Does one really
deserve to be murdered

1467
01:17:56.430 --> 01:17:58.950
for having a very
slight emotional overlap

1468
01:17:58.950 --> 01:18:00.986
in your heterosexual relations?

1469
01:18:00.986 --> 01:18:02.678
I think not, Great Britain.

1470
01:18:04.749 --> 01:18:06.820
- What really makes
me sad about Sandra is

1471
01:18:06.820 --> 01:18:11.859
that if she'd been born
20, even 10 years later,

1472
01:18:13.240 --> 01:18:14.897
I think her life would've
been completely different.

1473
01:18:14.897 --> 01:18:18.970
Sandra's sort of acknowledged
boyfriend was Australian,

1474
01:18:18.970 --> 01:18:21.351
he was called John Hankins

1475
01:18:21.351 --> 01:18:25.770
and she'd met him in
the Plumber's Arms Pub.

1476
01:18:25.770 --> 01:18:29.187
They seemed to have
been quite serious

1477
01:18:29.187 --> 01:18:31.465
because it was reported

1478
01:18:31.465 --> 01:18:35.883
that she had asked Roger
Rivett for a divorce

1479
01:18:35.883 --> 01:18:37.643
'cause they never
actually got divorced.

1480
01:18:37.643 --> 01:18:40.646
And he said, "Okay,
I'll divorce you."

1481
01:18:40.646 --> 01:18:42.476
But he never heard
from her again.

1482
01:18:42.476 --> 01:18:43.891
Presumably that was

1483
01:18:43.891 --> 01:18:46.066
because she was getting
serious with John Hankins.

1484
01:18:47.723 --> 01:18:50.208
- Veronica states on
record several times,

1485
01:18:50.208 --> 01:18:51.830
including during the inquiry.

1486
01:18:51.830 --> 01:18:54.695
She never had a
problem with Sandra.

1487
01:18:54.695 --> 01:18:56.662
Sandra had relations with men,

1488
01:18:56.662 --> 01:18:58.492
but she did not
bring those men home.

1489
01:18:58.492 --> 01:19:00.770
They did not affect her work.

1490
01:19:00.770 --> 01:19:04.567
It's irrelevant, it's
totally irrelevant.

1491
01:19:05.671 --> 01:19:09.020
- She had a really
attractive sort of

1492
01:19:09.020 --> 01:19:11.022
conventionally
attractive appearance

1493
01:19:12.195 --> 01:19:14.750
and obviously that's
appealing to the press.

1494
01:19:16.061 --> 01:19:18.063
There was a certain amount
about her boyfriends.

1495
01:19:18.063 --> 01:19:21.135
There was a certain amount
about her broken marriage

1496
01:19:21.135 --> 01:19:24.829
and I think that

1497
01:19:24.829 --> 01:19:27.245
I'm afraid is par
for the course.

1498
01:19:27.245 --> 01:19:29.523
Sadly, I'm not sure how
much that's changed.

1499
01:19:30.973 --> 01:19:32.940
- I don't believe that there
were any preconceived views

1500
01:19:32.940 --> 01:19:34.770
by the officers at the time.

1501
01:19:34.770 --> 01:19:36.668
I tried to put myself
in their position.

1502
01:19:36.668 --> 01:19:40.189
The officers would've turned
up to a horrendous scene.

1503
01:19:40.189 --> 01:19:44.227
They would've established at a
pretty early point the nature

1504
01:19:44.227 --> 01:19:47.058
of the injuries that she
received, that she was a nanny,

1505
01:19:48.162 --> 01:19:50.751
her having a boyfriend
or boyfriends.

1506
01:19:50.751 --> 01:19:53.374
I don't think that was
necessarily anything

1507
01:19:53.374 --> 01:19:54.928
that would've been then thinking

1508
01:19:54.928 --> 01:19:56.653
that had anything to do with it.

1509
01:19:56.653 --> 01:19:59.725
I genuinely think that those
officers were steadfast in

1510
01:19:59.725 --> 01:20:01.935
their desire to
establish the facts.

1511
01:20:01.935 --> 01:20:05.076
So I don't believe that that
had any bearing whatsoever on

1512
01:20:05.076 --> 01:20:07.319
the mindset of those
officers at that time.

1513
01:20:10.012 --> 01:20:11.945
- I think she'd have
had a great time now.

1514
01:20:11.945 --> 01:20:15.741
For somebody like her
who didn't settle,

1515
01:20:16.742 --> 01:20:21.817
which, you know it's not a crime

1516
01:20:23.025 --> 01:20:25.061
and she wouldn't have
had to be a nanny in

1517
01:20:25.061 --> 01:20:27.857
that weird household,
let's face it,

1518
01:20:27.857 --> 01:20:31.619
she'd be alive almost certainly.

1519
01:20:31.619 --> 01:20:34.174
[sombre music]

1520
01:21:17.838 --> 01:21:20.634
[dramatic music]

1521
01:21:28.366 --> 01:21:30.057
- After nearly 50 years,

1522
01:21:30.057 --> 01:21:33.889
my understanding is that
this is still a cold case

1523
01:21:33.889 --> 01:21:35.752
for the Metropolitan
Police Service.

1524
01:21:36.926 --> 01:21:38.755
This case would've
been very frustrating

1525
01:21:38.755 --> 01:21:42.311
for those officers
involved because initially,

1526
01:21:42.311 --> 01:21:44.934
and this is no disrespect
to my colleagues,

1527
01:21:44.934 --> 01:21:48.282
they may have assumed that
this was an open and shut case.

1528
01:21:48.282 --> 01:21:50.043
Everything pointed
to Lord Lucan.

1529
01:21:51.596 --> 01:21:54.910
The problem for them is they
were never ever able to speak

1530
01:21:54.910 --> 01:21:57.326
to him because he disappeared

1531
01:21:57.326 --> 01:21:59.535
and has never been
seen for 50 years.

1532
01:22:01.571 --> 01:22:03.642
- There are all these
unanswered questions,

1533
01:22:03.642 --> 01:22:05.713
but it may be that they're
just unanswered questions

1534
01:22:05.713 --> 01:22:08.026
for YouTubers and podcasters.

1535
01:22:08.026 --> 01:22:11.098
And the fact is we
still know who did it.

1536
01:22:11.098 --> 01:22:13.411
If I had to put forward a
theory, I'd probably say Lucan

1537
01:22:13.411 --> 01:22:16.862
employed a hitman and that's
why they got the wrong woman

1538
01:22:19.210 --> 01:22:21.729
and attacked
Veronica in a panic.

1539
01:22:21.729 --> 01:22:23.766
But even that doesn't
fit all the facts.

1540
01:22:25.112 --> 01:22:27.149
- We all have our views

1541
01:22:27.149 --> 01:22:31.636
and thoughts as to what may
have happened to Lord Lucan.

1542
01:22:31.636 --> 01:22:35.364
From my perspective,
there's nothing to suggest

1543
01:22:35.364 --> 01:22:37.711
that he committed suicide.

1544
01:22:37.711 --> 01:22:39.885
For me, it would suggest that

1545
01:22:39.885 --> 01:22:42.750
after the event
somebody helped him

1546
01:22:42.750 --> 01:22:47.134
to possibly leave the country
at some point in time.

1547
01:22:47.134 --> 01:22:50.103
It didn't have to be in
the first 48, 72 hours.

1548
01:22:50.103 --> 01:22:52.760
It could be a week,
two weeks after

1549
01:22:52.760 --> 01:22:56.592
and has probably been
able to look after him

1550
01:22:56.592 --> 01:22:58.663
and support him over the years.

1551
01:22:58.663 --> 01:23:00.113
That is my own personal view.

1552
01:23:00.113 --> 01:23:02.632
I know other people
may probably disagree,

1553
01:23:02.632 --> 01:23:06.843
but it seems too convenient
for someone to have disappeared

1554
01:23:06.843 --> 01:23:09.570
after such a
significant incident

1555
01:23:09.570 --> 01:23:13.505
and not be found for 50 years
without having some help.

1556
01:23:14.851 --> 01:23:18.579
- I still don't believe
Lord Lucan did it.

1557
01:23:18.579 --> 01:23:19.822
No way.

1558
01:23:19.822 --> 01:23:23.722
I don't see him hurting a fly.

1559
01:23:23.722 --> 01:23:26.553
I never allow
myself to judge her.

1560
01:23:26.553 --> 01:23:31.040
They were both lost creatures
in this world of madness.

1561
01:23:34.423 --> 01:23:36.735
[gentle music]

1562
01:23:36.735 --> 01:23:41.395
- The trouble with this
story is so many hangers on

1563
01:23:41.395 --> 01:23:46.435
after the event were just
saying the most unbelievable.

1564
01:23:47.608 --> 01:23:51.095
I still hear things from
people who say, "Oh,

1565
01:23:51.095 --> 01:23:52.579
"Veronica did this."

1566
01:23:52.579 --> 01:23:57.549
or "Do you know Lucan was
fed to a bunch of tigers?"

1567
01:23:58.412 --> 01:24:00.966
And it's all, it's a story

1568
01:24:00.966 --> 01:24:04.591
that breeds a lot
of real nonsense.

1569
01:24:05.799 --> 01:24:07.145
- I've heard the stories

1570
01:24:07.145 --> 01:24:10.079
of Aspinall feeding
Lucan into the tigers.

1571
01:24:10.079 --> 01:24:12.771
I would've believed it more
if he'd fed him to pigs

1572
01:24:12.771 --> 01:24:14.670
'cause pigs will eat anything.

1573
01:24:14.670 --> 01:24:17.569
It's never really
rung true with me.

1574
01:24:19.088 --> 01:24:22.057
Aspinall wasn't a
close friend of his.

1575
01:24:22.057 --> 01:24:24.473
He didn't particularly
like Lucan,

1576
01:24:24.473 --> 01:24:26.613
but Lucan was very useful to him

1577
01:24:26.613 --> 01:24:28.511
because he was seen

1578
01:24:28.511 --> 01:24:32.653
as an aristocratic playing
member at the club,

1579
01:24:32.653 --> 01:24:36.278
an attraction to others
to go to Aspinall's clubs.

1580
01:24:36.278 --> 01:24:39.074
I can think of no reason on
earth that he would've gone

1581
01:24:39.074 --> 01:24:42.870
to the trouble of trying
to feed, you know,

1582
01:24:42.870 --> 01:24:44.527
Lucan to the tigers.

1583
01:24:45.804 --> 01:24:47.012
What happened to him?

1584
01:24:47.875 --> 01:24:49.429
I don't believe he's dead.

1585
01:24:49.429 --> 01:24:53.640
He may by now have
died of natural causes.

1586
01:24:53.640 --> 01:24:56.298
He will be 90 very soon.

1587
01:24:57.678 --> 01:25:01.958
But his father lived
to a decent age.

1588
01:25:01.958 --> 01:25:06.894
So if you accept that he ran
away that night and escaped,

1589
01:25:06.894 --> 01:25:11.934
then he may well
still be out there.

1590
01:25:12.521 --> 01:25:14.109
But the family

1591
01:25:14.109 --> 01:25:17.353
and friends of his have tried
very hard through the years

1592
01:25:17.353 --> 01:25:20.701
to suggest that he took
the honourable course

1593
01:25:20.701 --> 01:25:22.151
and killed himself.

1594
01:25:22.151 --> 01:25:25.396
But I've never believed
that for one moment,

1595
01:25:25.396 --> 01:25:28.985
it's very hard to kill yourself
and hide your own body.

1596
01:25:30.539 --> 01:25:34.025
[suspenseful music]

1597
01:25:36.303 --> 01:25:39.272
- Veronica had a really
tough time after all this.

1598
01:25:39.272 --> 01:25:41.343
She got these head wounds.

1599
01:25:41.343 --> 01:25:42.896
She was in hospital.

1600
01:25:42.896 --> 01:25:46.796
She sort of seemed
to cut herself off.

1601
01:25:46.796 --> 01:25:51.767
Her life did start to
sort of fall apart really.

1602
01:25:51.767 --> 01:25:55.702
She did in fact lose her
children at the end of it all.

1603
01:25:55.702 --> 01:25:57.566
- [Interviewer] Are you
going to start proceedings

1604
01:25:57.566 --> 01:26:00.810
to get your husband
declared legally dead?

1605
01:26:00.810 --> 01:26:02.847
- No, I'm not.
- Why not?

1606
01:26:04.400 --> 01:26:05.953
- Because I don't think he is.

1607
01:26:08.163 --> 01:26:09.750
- [Interviewer] Would it not
make a difference to your life

1608
01:26:09.750 --> 01:26:11.166
if you did?

1609
01:26:11.166 --> 01:26:14.859
As far as the last seven
years have shown me,

1610
01:26:14.859 --> 01:26:17.344
it would make
absolutely no difference

1611
01:26:17.344 --> 01:26:19.381
to my life whatsoever.

1612
01:26:19.381 --> 01:26:22.522
Apart from doing
something which I don't

1613
01:26:22.522 --> 01:26:24.248
really believe to be true.

1614
01:26:24.248 --> 01:26:25.835
- [Interviewer] Do you
think you'll see him again?

1615
01:26:25.835 --> 01:26:27.285
- I always hope to,

1616
01:26:27.285 --> 01:26:29.977
but I have a feeling that
I won't see him again.

1617
01:26:29.977 --> 01:26:31.324
I don't think he'll come back.

1618
01:26:31.324 --> 01:26:33.533
He'll have made another
life for himself.

1619
01:26:35.397 --> 01:26:38.365
I always hope though,
there's always a possibility.

1620
01:26:38.365 --> 01:26:40.160
- How has life changed for you?

1621
01:26:40.160 --> 01:26:41.782
What do you do from day to day?

1622
01:26:42.990 --> 01:26:47.271
- It's changed to one
day is like another.

1623
01:26:47.271 --> 01:26:50.377
It's like being isolated.

1624
01:26:50.377 --> 01:26:52.034
It's worse than being in prison

1625
01:26:53.484 --> 01:26:58.040
because I haven't got any prison
inmates with me to talk to.

1626
01:26:58.868 --> 01:27:00.180
I'm in solitary confinement

1627
01:27:01.561 --> 01:27:05.220
and I feel hostility from
those that I knew before.

1628
01:27:05.220 --> 01:27:10.052
- She lived in the muse house
behind Lower Belgrave Street.

1629
01:27:10.052 --> 01:27:13.814
And then she would occasionally
say, "I still adore John."

1630
01:27:13.814 --> 01:27:15.954
As she called him, Lucan.

1631
01:27:15.954 --> 01:27:17.232
She kept his portrait.

1632
01:27:19.648 --> 01:27:23.341
She's very
complicated, Veronica.

1633
01:27:23.341 --> 01:27:26.931
She deliberately went on
television near the end

1634
01:27:26.931 --> 01:27:31.418
of her life and just to
reassert her version of events,

1635
01:27:31.418 --> 01:27:34.835
[gentle music]

1636
01:27:34.835 --> 01:27:37.217
she was brilliant,
absolutely brilliant

1637
01:27:38.563 --> 01:27:40.841
'cause I think it did
worry her that people said,

1638
01:27:42.981 --> 01:27:46.502
you know, some of this
evidence is a bit conflicting.

1639
01:27:46.502 --> 01:27:51.058
She did have friends, but
she seemed still to be

1640
01:27:51.058 --> 01:27:54.786
very, I don't know if she
was obsessed with Lucan,

1641
01:27:54.786 --> 01:27:56.374
but I think the idea
of having married him,

1642
01:27:56.374 --> 01:27:57.996
I think that still pleased her.

1643
01:27:59.619 --> 01:28:02.415
I saw her near Buckingham
Palace not that long

1644
01:28:02.415 --> 01:28:03.899
before she died actually.

1645
01:28:03.899 --> 01:28:07.040
And she looked very, you
know, she was immaculate

1646
01:28:09.387 --> 01:28:12.079
like older ladies
in the 1970s really.

1647
01:28:13.943 --> 01:28:15.635
She died in 2017.

1648
01:28:15.635 --> 01:28:19.432
It seems a very difficult life.

1649
01:28:21.641 --> 01:28:23.159
- Veronica said towards
the end of her life,

1650
01:28:23.159 --> 01:28:25.714
her biggest fear was
becoming dependent on others

1651
01:28:25.714 --> 01:28:28.579
and that she supported
assisted suicide.

1652
01:28:28.579 --> 01:28:31.167
And I don't think
it's any real surprise

1653
01:28:31.167 --> 01:28:34.688
that she was subsequently
found dead in her own home.

1654
01:28:34.688 --> 01:28:38.692
And it was presumed that she
had indeed taken her own life.

1655
01:28:38.692 --> 01:28:41.661
There is something
really very pitiful

1656
01:28:41.661 --> 01:28:43.939
about the whole episode.

1657
01:28:45.837 --> 01:28:49.772
- She was quite a
feisty lady who was able

1658
01:28:49.772 --> 01:28:51.084
to stick up for herself.

1659
01:28:52.499 --> 01:28:55.709
I met her many years
after this all happened.

1660
01:28:57.573 --> 01:29:00.852
I went to her house
and I spoke to her

1661
01:29:00.852 --> 01:29:04.200
and she invited me in
knowing I was a journalist

1662
01:29:04.200 --> 01:29:05.995
or knowing as I
was then an author.

1663
01:29:05.995 --> 01:29:08.550
I wanted to write
a book about it.

1664
01:29:08.550 --> 01:29:10.137
So I introduced myself.

1665
01:29:10.137 --> 01:29:14.072
She invited me into a little
tiny living room that she had

1666
01:29:14.072 --> 01:29:16.040
and she actually brought out tea

1667
01:29:16.040 --> 01:29:17.697
and we had a cup
of tea together.

1668
01:29:19.112 --> 01:29:21.908
And she was pleasant and helpful

1669
01:29:21.908 --> 01:29:26.533
and she tried to paint Lord
Lucan in quite a good light.

1670
01:29:26.533 --> 01:29:29.743
She wasn't desperately
nasty about him at all.

1671
01:29:29.743 --> 01:29:34.058
And I went back the very next
day, banged on the same door

1672
01:29:34.058 --> 01:29:38.200
and she opened the door and
threw a cup of urine in over me

1673
01:29:38.200 --> 01:29:40.409
and started literally
in the middle

1674
01:29:40.409 --> 01:29:43.481
of the street screaming
I was gutter press

1675
01:29:43.481 --> 01:29:45.759
and I should F off.

1676
01:29:45.759 --> 01:29:49.211
And I told that story
to Bill Shand Kydd,

1677
01:29:49.211 --> 01:29:52.870
who'd raised her children and
knew her very well indeed.

1678
01:29:52.870 --> 01:29:55.976
And he said, "Oh, that
was typical Veronica."

1679
01:29:59.428 --> 01:30:00.947
- I think what was very touching

1680
01:30:00.947 --> 01:30:03.294
and really in some ways typical
of what we've got to know

1681
01:30:03.294 --> 01:30:07.850
of Veronica, that she was able
to recognise that the tragedy

1682
01:30:07.850 --> 01:30:10.370
of their marriage and the
discord in that marriage led

1683
01:30:10.370 --> 01:30:12.890
to the loss of
Sandra Rivett's life

1684
01:30:12.890 --> 01:30:15.686
and how sorry she
was about that.

1685
01:30:15.686 --> 01:30:17.998
And that there was nothing
she could do about that,

1686
01:30:17.998 --> 01:30:21.864
but that she would
never forget her or it.

1687
01:30:21.864 --> 01:30:26.869
And that really
speaks to Veronica's
humanity, her empathy,

1688
01:30:28.146 --> 01:30:32.357
and also to a sisterhood,
if you like, almost,

1689
01:30:33.531 --> 01:30:37.121
with a fellow woman who
hadn't had an easy path

1690
01:30:37.121 --> 01:30:40.296
and who'd got caught
up in a psychodrama

1691
01:30:40.296 --> 01:30:42.920
that was really of
none of her doing.

1692
01:30:42.920 --> 01:30:45.509
[gentle piano music]

1693
01:30:46.924 --> 01:30:50.583
- Sandra's sister described
her in the newspapers.

1694
01:30:50.583 --> 01:30:52.895
She said she was fun-loving.

1695
01:30:52.895 --> 01:30:56.416
She was, you know,
up for a laugh.

1696
01:30:56.416 --> 01:31:01.317
She was sociable, she
was kind, thoughtful.

1697
01:31:02.387 --> 01:31:05.011
Just all the things
that make you

1698
01:31:05.011 --> 01:31:09.498
think she was actually
a lovely young woman.

1699
01:31:09.498 --> 01:31:14.365
And it it just very, very
poignant tribute to her.

1700
01:31:19.750 --> 01:31:21.165
- John actually,

1701
01:31:21.165 --> 01:31:24.962
her last boyfriend said
she was a really good girl.

1702
01:31:24.962 --> 01:31:27.447
He actually was deeply one
of the most touching bits

1703
01:31:27.447 --> 01:31:29.622
of the case, but
never gets heard.

1704
01:31:29.622 --> 01:31:31.209
She was a lovely lass.

1705
01:31:31.209 --> 01:31:33.833
She might have had a
rather lovely future

1706
01:31:33.833 --> 01:31:35.766
after a bit of a
questionable start in life.

1707
01:31:35.766 --> 01:31:36.629
Poor girl.

1708
01:31:39.528 --> 01:31:42.462
- John Hankins talked to
the papers quite a lot

1709
01:31:42.462 --> 01:31:44.706
after it all happened.

1710
01:31:44.706 --> 01:31:47.467
He gave the impression
that they might have gone

1711
01:31:47.467 --> 01:31:51.091
to Australia, they might have
had a happy life together.

1712
01:31:55.579 --> 01:31:58.582
- She was a lovely
girl, lovely nature.

1713
01:31:59.928 --> 01:32:02.309
And it's sad really 'cause
she didn't deserve that,

1714
01:32:03.448 --> 01:32:05.002
didn't have a bad
bone in her at all.

1715
01:32:12.906 --> 01:32:15.530
[bright music]

1716
01:32:19.464 --> 01:32:22.191
- I think it's so often
the case when we report

1717
01:32:22.191 --> 01:32:25.988
or record crime, the
victim gets overlooked

1718
01:32:25.988 --> 01:32:27.783
time and time again.

1719
01:32:27.783 --> 01:32:31.131
And when we refer to
the case of Lord Lucan,

1720
01:32:31.131 --> 01:32:34.894
can we please put
before his name,

1721
01:32:34.894 --> 01:32:38.725
the name of the
victim of the murder.

1722
01:32:38.725 --> 01:32:41.245
She was called Sandra Rivett,

1723
01:32:41.245 --> 01:32:42.833
and she lost her life on

1724
01:32:42.833 --> 01:32:46.733
that night in a basement
in London in 1974.

1725
01:32:47.631 --> 01:32:49.494
The innocent victim of the case.

1726
01:32:51.324 --> 01:32:53.947
[bright music]

1727
01:33:14.968 --> 01:33:18.420
[bright music continues]

1728
01:33:28.016 --> 01:33:31.053
[bright music ends]