What happened to Lord Lucan's wife and children? How the Earl's disappearance after his nanny's murder tore his family apart

On the night of November, 8, 1974, Richard John Bingham – better known as Lord Lucan – vanished into thin air, leaving behind his three children and estranged wife.

The 7th Earl of Lucan was 39-years-old when he disappeared from East Sussex, just one night after the family's nanny, Sandra Rivett, had been found bludgeoned to death in their home in Belgravia, London .

The case is shrouded in mystery, as Lord Lucan had been facing a series of personal struggles prior to his disappearance, including a gambling addiction, spiraling debt and a bitter custody battle that further led to an unhealthy fixation on his wife.

Little did the Lucan brood know, the Earl's disappearance would only mark the beginning of a series of tragic and unfortunate events that devastated the family.

On the night before he vanished, Lord Lucan's estranged wife, Veronica Mary Duncan, burst into a pub covered 'head to toe in blood' and revealed her husband had attacked her.

On the same evening, the young children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was found dead in the familial home.

Lord Lucan fled to a friend's property in East Sussex, where he told them and his mother that he had intervened when an assailant attacked his family earlier that night.

The Earl vanished the following day, when his abandoned car was found in Newhaven.

Its interiors were stained with blood and the boot contained a piece of taped-up lead pipe that was similar to one found at the murder scene.

Police issued a warrant for his arrest, but Lord Lucan was never found, and he was later declared dead in absentia in October 1999.

Over the years, a bitter feud ensued between the remaining family and it was reported that Veronica didn't speak to her children for more than 35 years.

Tragically, in 2017, Veronica died by suicide at the age of 80 from a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol .

She died alone in the very home where Sandra was murdered, after previously self-diagnosing herself with Parkinson's disease and admitting she would kill herself if her health continued to deteriorate.

In a shocking turn of events, Veronica left nothing to her children – Frances, 52, George, 50, and Camilla, 47 – after refusing to speak to them for more than three decades.

Instead, she left her entire £576,626 estate to the homelessness charity Shelter. George, who married Anne-Sofie Foghsgaard, the daughter of a wealthy Danish industrialist, in 2016, said: 'I applaud the decision.'

The size of her fortune would have left Lady Lucan's friends bewildered as she did not own her mews house and lived in such squalor that the lavatory didn't flush properly and her wallpaper was peeling.

She said she needed the £50,000 she hoped to earn from her memoirs to buy a new kitchen.

In one final jab from beyond the grave , she explained in her will why she refused to leave a penny of her children.

In a document released by the probate office, she wrote: 'In view of the lack of good manners and reverence shown to me as their parent, I do not wish any of my three children to benefit from my death any more than they have to.'

Lady Lucan told the Daily Mail in 2015 that her son had bartered 'the accidental privilege of his birth' by abandoning her to live with his aunt and uncle.

She accused George — who was seven when his nanny, Sandra Rivett, 29, was beaten to death with a lead pipe at the family's townhouse — of withholding important belongings from her.

George and his sisters lived with their mother in Belgravia following Lucan's disappearance in 1974. Veronica was hurt in the attack and her husband was named as the murderer at Rivett's inquest.

Custody of the children was ransferred to Veronica's sister, Christina Shand Kydd and her husband, Bill, eight years later, when Lady Lucan reportedly began suffering mental health illness.

However, Veronica refuted: 'I did not suffer a mental breakdown. Custody of my children was transferred to the Shand Kydds because my son declared in an affidavit that he would find it much more congenial to live as part of the family of his aunt and uncle.'

George said he had no alternative as he was only 14 and had to move, under the direction of his guardian-in-law, the Official Solicitor.

As the 50th anniversary of his disappearance descends, a three-part BBC docuseries will follow one man's hunt for the truth about the murder of Sandra Rivett.

The case has consumed Neil for the last two decades, and it has done so for one reason in particular: Sandra Rivett was his birth mother.

In the BBC programme, Neil will offer a shocking new theory about Lord Lucan's whereabouts, as the Hampshire builder remains convinced he is still alive.

The first episode of Lucan will airs on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.