No more looking for Lucan

A death certificate has been issued for the peer who vanished after his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in London.

In 1999 he was declared dead – though there have been numerous unverified sightings since 1975. The issuing of a death certificate will allow his son the right to inherit the family title.

Lord Lucan’s son, Lord Bingham, said:”I am very happy with the judgment of the court in this matter.”

“It has been a very long time coming.”

Ms Rivett’s son, Neil Berriman, 49, said: “I think dead. It is fantastic and I am very pleased for .”

The peer went missing after Ms Rivett was murdered in November 1974. He went to a friend’s house in East Sussex in a car that was later found abandoned with bloodstains inside.

Various theories have been put forward about what happened to him. Lady Lucan said at the time her husband admitted carrying out the murder and that it was a mistake.

But sightings of him were reported in January 1975 in Melbourne, Australia and later in France.

Other sightings include in an ex-Nazi colony in Paraguay, the Australian outback, Mount Etna and San Francisco.

Some even claim he fled to India and took up the life of a hippy called “Jungle Barry”.

However, outside the High Court today, George Bingham said: “I’ve heard the most bizarre range of theories, some of them reasonably tasteless.

“My own personal view, and it was one I took as an eight-year-old boy, is that he has unfortunately been dead since that time.

“In the circumstances I would think it possible that he saw his life at an end, regardless of guilt or otherwise, being dragged through the courts and the media would have destroyed his personal life, his career and the chances of getting the custody of his children back.

“And that may well have pushed a man to end his own life, but I have no idea.”