Over the past week, the Mail’s brilliant new podcast The Trial Of Lord Lucan had unravelled one of the greatest crime mysteries ever with extraordinary new evidence.
In episodes released daily from Monday June 3 to Friday June 7, two real-life eminent barristers have argued whether Lord Lucan was innocent or guilty using a bombshell new document and unheard evidence in an unmissable twist on courtroom drama.
The Lord Lucan case is one of the world’s most enduring crime mysteries. It will be 50 years this November 7 since the 39-year-old British aristocrat vanished without trace within hours of the murder of his nanny Sandra Rivett, 29, and the near fatal assault on his wife Veronica, who told police her Eton-educated husband was responsible for both attacks.
Police have long believed that Lucan killed mother-of-two Mrs Rivett in the basement kitchen of his family’s five-storey Belgravia home in Central London, after mistaking her for his estranged wife. His three children were upstairs.
IS LORD LUCAN GUILTY? CAST YOUR VERDICT NOW:
Today, in his closing speech, defence barrister Edward Henry KC urges jurors to judge the case on ‘the evidence, and the evidence alone’, saying Lord Lucan had been the victim of a ‘tsunami of prejudice’.
‘This is perhaps the most notorious murder allegation of modern times,’ he adds, as he concedes that the ‘odds are stacked’ against his client.
But questioning whether Lucan could ever get a fair trial, he states the prosecution is ‘drenched in prejudice’.
‘Lord Lucan, has been convicted countless times before he even entered this courtroom. He has been vilified … his whole life defamed in the Press, the Media, and on the Internet — for decade upon decade before this trial.
‘How do you put this out of your mind, members of the jury?’
Mr Henry challenges the Crown’s case that Lucan had mistaken Sandra Rivett for his ‘waif-like’, ‘elfin’ wife — saying the pair were very different in physical appearance.
‘It points to a stranger, it points to an intruder,’ he declares. ‘This could easily have been a burglary gone wrong ‘
He reminds the jury that the burden lies on the prosecution to prove guilt, and he alleges the Crown’s case does not make sense.
It was clear Lucan adored his children, Mr Henry says, so it is difficult to understand why he would murder their mother only to abandon them in the house to attend the Clermont Club, a Mayfair gambling venue, to create an alibi.
The reason he fled the house, after his wife raised the alert at The Plumbers Arms, can be put down to the ‘agonising predicament he found himself,’ the KC says.
After interrupting the attack on his wife, he became the butt of a false allegation and ‘tongue tied’ and in fear, he fled the scene. It is a false allegation which has ‘shaped his life’, he insists, as he warns the jury of the dangers of believing Lady Lucan.
He says Lady Lucan had an ‘implacable, unswerving hostility towards the defendant — she screamed at him that he had ‘paid a man to murder her’ – and was a ‘gravely hostile and dangerous witness’.
‘Does she not have an axe to grind?’ he asks, addressing the enmity between the Lucans.
Mr Henry also describes the forensic evidence at the murder scene as a ‘fiasco’ because of contamination.
Listen to The Trial of Lord Lucan here, as well as everywhere you usually get your podcasts.
In a world-exclusive true crime podcast event, The Mail brings you The Trial Of Lord Lucan.
In six unmissable episodes, listen to two real-life eminent barristers argue whether Lord Lucan was innocent or guilty using the bombshell new document and unheard-of evidence in an unmissable twist on courtroom drama.
Follow the highs and lows of the case in forensic detail in the podcast.
Listen to The Trial Of Lord Lucan everywhere you usually get your podcasts.