The case against Lord Lucan: Meet the barristers who’ll fight to convict Britain’s most notorious murder suspect on the Mail’s groundreaking podcast The Trial of Lord Lucan – with YOU as the jury
It’s the high society murder trial that never happened – until now.
Picture this: Lord Lucan in the dock at the Old Bailey, as the Mail podcast team behind our critically acclaimed series The lawsuit bring you every dramatic turn from the oak-paneled press box.
And then consider how you – the reader – could directly decide the extraordinary fate of Lord Lucan, as a member of the jury of his peers tasked with finding him innocent or guilty.
Imagine that no more, because in a world first, The Mail brings the Lord Lucan trial explosively to life – using the actual but previously unseen 60-page Scotland Yard document – exclusively obtained – detailing the police case against the graph is described.
This November marks 50 years since the murder that shocked Britain – and shocked the world. Lord Lucan went on the run after nanny Sandra Rivett was beaten to death with a lead pipe and his estranged wife Veronica suffered serious head wounds at their Belgravia home.
Now for the first time the Mail can reveal exclusive details of the prosecution case against the Count, prepared by police ahead of his arrest and trial. And to give the case the seriousness it deserves, we persuaded two of Britain’s leading criminal lawyers to write and execute their own stunning courtroom rhetoric based on the police document.
The Trial of Lord Lucan: Follow The Mail’s brand new podcast wherever you get your podcasts
Lawyers Edward Henry KC (left) and Max Hardy (right) will help Mail readers find Lord Lucan innocent or guilty
It’s been almost fifty years since British aristocrat Lord Lucan (pictured), 39, disappeared without a trace
He disappeared after nanny Sandra Rivett (photo) was beaten to death in the family home
Lord Lucan’s wife Veronica Mary Duncan (pictured here with him) was almost fatally attacked that same night
Together these lawyers now present to us the sensational cases for the prosecution and defense of the 7th Earl of Lucan.
The Mail’s groundbreaking podcast series The Trial has already received critical acclaim for offering listeners in-depth audio coverage of a live trial. Our coverage of the Lucy Letby trial and other landmark cases has been downloaded more than 26 million times and won several industry awards.
The Trial Of Lord Lucan is a groundbreaking production that features never-before-heard testimony from original witnesses who spoke exclusively to The Mail’s Associate Editor Stephen Wright and presenter Caroline Cheetham, alongside two of Britain’s most celebrated lawyers.
Despite half a century of intrigue, tens of thousands of articles and countless books and documentaries on the Lord Lucan mystery, Wright is the only journalist in the world to have obtained the actual Scotland Yard file on which prosecutors allegedly based their Old Bailey case. if Lucan had been caught.
At our invitation, barrister Max Hardy, a leading legal figure who has led some of the Crown Prosecution Service’s most high-profile criminal trials, read through the 1975 police file and wrote an extremely moving ‘opening speech’ for the Mail’s podcast. to potential jurors. His essential courtroom rhetoric can be seen in the third episode of the series.
The role of defending Lord Lucan will be taken on by barrister Edward Henry KC. He is an eminent star of the bar, already known to millions for his razor-sharp interrogation last month of former Post Office boss Paula Vennells during the Horizon inquiry into the postmasters scandal (he represents a group of them). He will plead for Lucan’s innocence in a spellbinding manner.
Jamie East, the Mail’s head of podcasts, said: ‘The Trial brand is a huge success story for the Mail. We’re always looking for ways to do new, innovative things in audio. When Stephen Wright walked in with the actual document detailing the police case against Lucan, we knew it was going to be a gripping new courtroom series.
“The millions of people who listen to The Trial will love it. With the help of two incredible lawyers, we shot episodes in our state-of-the-art studios and locations across the UK.
‘It’s a compelling true crime story, but it’s not overly dramatized. We have done our utmost to make it as authentic as possible, and as close as possible to what Lord Lucan’s real ordeal would have been.
Sandra Rivett (pictured) was brutally murdered at Lord Lucan’s house in London on November 7, 1974
The blood-soaked basement with Sandra’s body in a mailbag next to a discarded shoe
The Plumbers Arms, where Lady Lucan ran after finding Sandra dead in her home
Lady Lucan with Frances and George, two of the three children she had with her husband
Susan Maxwell-Scott with her husband William. She was the last person to see Lord Lucan alive
The front page of the Daily Mail in November 1974 about the disappearance of Lord Lucan and the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett
“We’ve gone out and spoken to detectives involved in the actual Lucan investigation, so there are a lot of interesting voices.
‘And the listeners are the judges. At the end of the series, they will alone weigh up the evidence they have heard – and find Lord Lucan guilty or not guilty.”
The Lucan story is one of the most enduring criminal cases in British legal history. There has been no confirmed sighting of Lucan since a few hours after Rivett’s murder on November 7, 1974. On the fateful evening, it is claimed that he planned to kill his wife Veronica – she had been given custody of their three young children after a murder. bitter battle at the High Court – by waiting for her in the basement of the family home on Lower Belgrave St.
He struck with lead rushes before placing the body in a US Mail bag. But the woman he killed was the couple’s 29-year-old nanny, Sandra Rivett, who had had the day off. She had changed days at the last minute. Lady Lucan was also attacked, but managed to escape and screamed for help to a nearby pub, covered in blood.
Lord Lucan, then 39, drove to a friend’s house in a sleepy Sussex village where he claimed that Veronica had been attacked by a stranger and that he had to keep a low profile because she had previously accused him of hiring a hitman and would blame him.
Three days later, his borrowed car was found abandoned – with a piece of lead pipework in the boot – in Newhaven harbor across the Channel. He hasn’t been seen since.
Go to dailymail.co.uk/lucan to listen to the podcast series and discover how YOU can be on the jury.
