An elderly British Buddhist living in Australia is not the missing fugitive peer Lord Lucan, who disappeared in 1974 after murdering his family’s nanny, facial recognition experts have told MailOnline.
The mystery of Lucan’s whereabouts has intrigued detectives and the public for decades, and the latest claim that he is a British expat aged 87 living in a commune near stoked the rumour mill once again.
The theory was proposed by the nanny Sandra Rivett’s surviving son, Neil Berriman, who tracked down the mystery pensioner in Australia and was convinced he was the man who killed his mother nearly 50 years ago.
But now MailOnline has seen an analysis of the same man’s photographs, compared with Lucan’s, prepared by a Home Office-approved team of facial recognition experts which definitively rules him out as Lucan.
The news lends extra weight to the man’s categorical denials that he was Lucan, issued by his carers at a Buddhist retreat in Brisbane.
Lord Lucan, who is accused of murdering nanny Sandra Rivett with a lead pipe in the basement kitchen of his Belgravia home, is believed to have died after evading authorities for years, and theories that he may be living in Australia have previously been touted, then debunked.
An elderly British Buddhist (left) living in Australia is not the missing fugitive peer Lord Lucan (right), who disappeared in 1974 after murdering his family’s nanny, facial recognition experts have told MailOnline
An algorithm was said to have matched photos of Lord Lucan, pictured with his wife Veronica, to an 87-year-old Buddhist living in Brisbane
Nanny Sandra Rivett was beaten to death with a lead pipe in 1974.Her body was found in the basement kitchen of Lord Lucan’s Belgravia house
Professor Hassan Ugail, who correctly identified the Russian agents behind the 2018 Salisbury Novichok poisonings
After a computer expert appeared to confirm the man as Lucan, Mr Berriman told the Mirror today: ‘I’ve spent nine years trying to prove this man is Lord Lucan. Now, with this new scientific information, the police must act.This isn’t emotion. It’s fact.’
But a new imagery report seen by MailOnline proves beyond doubt that the man was not Lucan.
It used detailed facial mapping techniques and was compiled by Dr Shelina Jilani of Home Office-approved Acumé Forensic, based in Leeds, whose experts frequently testify in court cases.
The experts were given a series of photographs of Lucan and the man in Australia by journalists from MailOnline’s sister organisation, The Mail on Sunday.The man was identified only as ‘Male A’.
Dr Jilani concluded: ‘The photographs of Lord Lucan bear sufficient features to eliminate the person from the reference images of Male A.’
She based her conclusions primarily on marked differences in the width of the nasal bridge between the two men, with Lucan having a narrow one and Male A having a wide one.
Another feature was the large protruding ears of Male A, which were not apparent on Lucan.
Dr Jilani added: ‘Factoring age related changes to morphology, there are features which are not comparable between [Lord Lucan] and Male A.’
It is understood that the conclusions were passed on to Mr Berriman, but he was unconvinced of the man’s innocence and subsequently approached the Mirror with his claims.
When confronted about his identity, the 87-year-old’s carers reportedly denied he was Lord Lucan.
Dr Shelina Jilani of Home Office-approved Acumé Forensic based her conclusions on the large protruding ears of Male A (right, 1 and 1a), which were not apparent on Lucan (left, 1 and 1a).She also noted the marked differences in the width of the nasal bridge between the two men, with Lucan (left, 2) having a narrow one and Male A (right, 2) having a wide one
The man suspected by Mr Berriman to be Lord Lucan lived in Nepal before moving to Australia in the 1980s.
He is understood to have used various names, including Derek and Adam, kıbrıs bahis siteleri and apparently always carries his birth certificate with him.
At first he lived in Fremantle, near Perth, Western Australia.He then moved to the South Australian capital Adelaide and then onto a new home near Brisbane, Queensland.
There, he has been looked after by members of a Buddhist community and two young Englishmen are understood to act as his carers.
The elderly Buddhist was once a regular customer at a sushi restaurant in Brisbane.
Despite not working, he was reportedly never short of money.
The peer’s wife Veronica, who was also beaten in the brutal attack — at the hands of her husband, she claimed — died aged 80 after taking a cocktail of drink and drugs in 2017.
Mr Berriman sensationally claimed in January 2020 that Lord Lucan was alive and well and living as a Buddhist in Australia — claims that were dismissed as outlandish, despite police launching a probe into the matter.
Now Mr Berriman, who helped track down the mystery pensioner, has told The Mirror: ‘I’ve spent nine years trying to prove this man is Lord Lucan. Now, with this new scientific information, the police must act.This isn’t emotion. It’s fact.’
Professor Ugail’s analysis of the photographs included studying micro-millimetre measurements of spaces between facial features.
The expert said he has spent 20 years developing his algorithm, adding: ‘It has never been wrong.’
And The Mirror claims another company conducted tests on the photographs and came to the same conclusion.
A death certificate was issued by a High Court judge for Lord Lucan in 2016 following decades of speculation over the aristocrat’s whereabouts.
Lord and Lady Lucan with their son George, then aged three, taken from Lady Lucan’s photo album
It comes after a Mail investigation revealed how three Cluedo cards – including Colonel Mustard – were found in Lord Lucan’s abandoned car in the port town of Newhaven, East Sussex.
The Scotland Yard cold case review took place in 2004 when detectives examined sets of crime exhibits from the original murder investigation which had been hidden in a police storage facility.Its findings were not made public until recently.
Crucially, it found three cards were missing from a Cluedo set recovered from Lord Lucan’s home by murder squad officers in the wake of the attack — the same cards that were found in the peer’s abandoned car.
As anyone who has played Cluedo will know, the point of the game is to identify a murderer in a mansion full of guests after one has been killed.
The cards depict characters who might be the killer, as well as their potential weapons and the room in which the murder took place.
This gives rise to the most extraordinary question. Did the Eton-educated aristocrat model himself on Colonel Mustard and leave the three cards in his borrowed Ford Corsair as some sort of murder confession? Or did someone plant them there to frame him?
Along with Colonel Mustard (the murderer), the other two cards found in the car were the lead piping (murder weapon) and the hall (murder location).
The Mirror’s report was based on findings by Professor Hassan Ugail of the University of Bradford, using a computer logarithm.
But the new imagery interpretation report seen by MailOnline left no room for doubt.
Professor Hassan Ugail, described by the Mirror as a leading expert in the field of facial recognition, is credited with correctly identifying the Russian agents behind the 2018 Salisbury Novichok poisonings.
The computer scientist claims to have used an AI algorithm to run 4,000 cross-checks of seven photos: four of Lord Lucan, who vanished in 1974, and three of the frail Australian pensioner, The Mirror reported.He said: ‘This isn’t an opinion, it’s science and mathematical fact.’
It is alleged that the mystery pensioner moved from house to house across Australia before settling just outside of Brisbane.
The nanny’s surviving son Neil Berriman, left, blasted police in 2020 for not arresting a man living in an Australian Buddhist commune who he claimed is her killer.Right, Eton-educated Lord Lucan
Richard John Bingham, the 7th of Earl of Lucan, found himself at the centre of one of the world’s most enduring murder mysteries during the 1970s
A Colonel Mustard playing card, like the one found in Lord Lucan’s abandoned car, from a vintage Cluedo set
An intriguing new line of inquiry was pursued by police 18 years ago – an alleged sighting of Lord Lucan at a party in the Algarve weeks after the Rivett murder.
If Lord Lucan did indeed attend a party in Portugal, as a female witness tracked down and interviewed by the Met insisted, it would torpedo the theory that the gambling addict jumped to his death in the sea after dumping his borrowed car at Newhaven.
A former Scotland Yard detective said it was impossible to be definitive about many of the questions that still hang over the case.
But he added: ‘In my experience, the bodies of deceased people – including those who have drowned – almost always turn up.It is very difficult to conceal a body.
‘Of all the facts in the case, the one I am most certain of is that he didn’t die in this country.
‘I think he left or was helped to leave the country. If I was to put money on it, and given what I know, I think he went to Portugal alone or was helped to get there, and then transported to one of the Portuguese colonies such as Angola and Mozambique.’
Before the Met launched its last major review of the Lucan case in 2004, a senior detective penned a confidential report into the murder – a copy of which has been handed to Miss Rivett’s son Mr Berriman. It declares that the police did not have a single set of Lord Lucan’s fingerprints, nor any of his DNA for a profile.
A separate preliminary report was written by a detective in the Met’s Serious Crime Group in January 2002, and a copy of this has also fallen into the hands of Mr Berriman.
Its forensic account of his mother’s murder and what Lord Lucan did afterwards has never been published in the mainstream media.Dispassionate and detailed, it is both disturbing and compelling.
The information the report contains is based on original police files and evidence which would have been used had Lord Lucan ever stood trial for the killing.
Lady Annabel Birley, Zac Goldsmith’s mother, with Lord Lucan in an undated photo.The fate of the fugitive peer has captivated the imagination of the British public for decades
Lucan, as many know, was an Old Etonian with a taste for the high life. After finishing National Service in 1955, he raced power boats, drove an Aston Martin and flamboyantly left his job in a merchant bank to become a professional gambler.
The report refers to this: ‘He was associated with illegal gambling houses in Belgravia and Mayfair, until gambling was legalised in 1964, when he became a founder member of The Clermont Club.He was known by his gambling friends as ‘Lucky’.’
With his pretty young wife Veronica, he set up home in 1964 in a five-storey Victorian terrace house, where they had three children.
But Lady Lucan suffered poor mental health, notably post-natal depression, the marriage foundered and in 1973 Lucan moved to a flat nearby, where he was living at the time of the murder.
According to the police report, Lord Lucan was ‘devoted to his children’, and it proved a bitter blow when Lady Lucan later won an acrimonious custody battle for them.
It was around this stage, in September 1974, that Sandra Rivett became their nanny.On Thursday November 7 that year, Lady Lucan was watching television in her bedroom on the second floor of her home with her daughter Frances and the 29-year-old nanny. The other two children were in bed.
‘Thursdays were usually Sandra Rivett’s night off, but she had not gone out that evening,’ says the Met report.’At approximately 8.55pm Sandra Rivett asked Lady Lucan whether would she would like a cup of tea… and went down to the basement, where the kitchen was.
‘At about 9.15pm Lady Lucan went to the basement to see what was taking Sandra so long.She got to the top of the stairs that led to the basement and was surprised to see that there were no lights on.
‘She shouted ‘Sandra, Sandra’. Then she heard a noise from a room behind her and she was struck over the head a number of times.At this stage, she had not seen her attacker.
‘She fell to the ground and started to scream. Her attacker then put his gloved fingers down her throat and told her to ‘shut up’. She recognised the voice as Lord Lucan’s. A struggle ensued, during which Lady Lucan bit his fingers and grabbed his genitalia.’
At this stage her attacker gave up the fight.’He seemed to lose strength and Lady Lucan tried to talk to him. She asked him where Sandra was, he initially said she had gone out. He then said, ‘I’ve killed her, she came down first, if it had been you, you would have got it’.’
Lady Lucan managed to persuade her husband to go upstairs with her, so that she could clean her injuries.They went up to Lady Lucan’s bedroom.
Lord Lucan placed a towel on the bed and Lady Lucan lay on it. He went to use the bathroom, whereupon she ran out of the house to The Plumbers Arms nearby.
‘When she got into the pub,’ the report says, ‘she collapsed on the floor and screamed: ‘He’s murdered the nanny and he’s after the children”.The police and an ambulance were called.
‘The first officers on the scene spoke to Lady Lucan. She told them that the nanny had been murdered and she gave them her address. Lady Lucan was taken to St George’s Hospital, SW1.’
Police went to the family home and forced the door open. According to the Met dossier, officers discovered Sandra Rivett’s body in a canvas United States mailbag in the basement.
There were two separate ‘seats’ of attack, the report says.The first in a small well of the stairs on the ground floor by the hall.
Here, the carpet was ‘heavily stained with blood and there were directional splashes of blood on the wall and ceiling’. There were also smears of blood on the walls and on a door that opened to the basement.
The Daily Mail of November 12, 1974, on the ongoing murder mystery