The mystery of Lord Lucan – the infamous aristocrat suspected of murdering his children’s nanny and trying to knock off his wife – has obsessed and enthralled the UK for five decades.
But the trail for the world’s most wanted man appeared to have finally run cold after years of sightings in every corner of the globe turned up nothing but shadows and whispers.
That was, until 2020 when the murdered nanny’s adopted son alleged a British-born Aussie monk was really Lucan in disguise and in turn, reignited one of the UK’s most enduring mysteries.
Now the accused monk, who lives in a retreat in rural Queensland, has spoken out in a bid to put the allegation to bed – and has revealed details of his equally colourful life.
Christopher Newman, a British-born Buddhist living in Bundaberg in Queensland‘s south east, was wrongly believed to be Lord Lucan – an infamous aristocrat and gambler who vanished from London on November 7, 1974 after being suspected of killing his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, and the attempted murder of his wife, Veronica.
A car belonging to Lord Lucan, whose real name was Richard John Bingham, was found abandoned and soaked in blood in Newhaven, a port town on England’s south coast, the following day.
No further trace of the mustachioed peer has ever been found.
Despite this, the mystery disappearance has captivated the British public for the last half century, with dozens of breathlessly reported sightings of Lucan living under a new identity in far-lung locations including Cape Town, Hong Kong and the Bahamas making headlines over the years.
Christopher Newman (pictured), a British-born Buddhist living in Bundaberg in Queensland ‘s south east, was wrongly believed to be Lord Lucan – an infamous aristocrat and gambler who vanished from London on 7 November 1974 after being suspected of killing his children’s nanny
A car belonging to Lord Lucan, whose real name was Richard John Bingham, was found abandoned and soaked in blood in Newhaven, a port town on England’s south coast, the following day. No further trace of the mustachioed peer has ever been found (pictured: Lord Lucan with his wife Veronica)
But a major breakthrough came in the case when Neil Berriman, the son of Sandra Rivett – the nanny who was bashed to death – claimed to have found an almost-exact facial match for Lucan living Down Under in 2022.
After 17 painstaking years, he identified Christopher Newman, an 89-year-old Buddhist monk currently being cared for in a retreat outside Bundaberg, as the man responsible.
There are a number of uncanny similarities between Mr Newman and the missing Lord Lucan beyond sharing the same age and similar features, which a respected facial recognition expert claimed ‘indicated they were conclusively the same individual’.
These include a cut on his left nostril, the fact he speaks with a posh British accent and attended the same school as Lucan, while also claiming to have hobnobbed with members of the Royal family in his youth.
He also admits to having changed his name on multiple occasions and living under different identities, first in Nepal before moving to Australia and living in Buddhist communities in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.
Mr Berriman’s dogged detective work, which is now the subject of a three-part documentary series on the BBC called ‘Lucan’, culminates in a tense face-off with the man he believes murdered his mother.
Alongside his mother’s former boyfriend, Mr Berriman travelled to Mr Newman’s rural Bundaberg home.
There ensued a heated, off-camera encounter where the frail monk allegedly told Mr Berriman: ‘And what if I am Lord Lucan? What the f*** are you going to do about it? Put me in prison?’
This publication subsequently disproved Mr Berriman’s theory by consulting a UK Government-approved team of facial recognition experts in November 2022 who definitively ruled out Mr Newman as Lord Lucan.
Glen Campbell, an investigative journalist featured in the BBC program, also discovered that Mr Newman starred in a drag queen show called Facade in Canada under the names Peter Jason/Jenny Romain.
The show was performed in 1969 – five years before Lord Lucan committed the murders, thus casting yet more doubt on whether it could be him.
Mr Newman eventually did agree to do a rambling, sit-down interview on camera with the program’s producer where he claims to have been ‘birthed into Stonehenge and brought up by the druids’.
He told the program that his biological father was a puppeteer who performed for the young princesses Elizabeth (the late Queen) and Margaret at Buckingham Palace and claimed he had changed his name so often to cast off ‘different energies’.
His birth certificate names him as Derek Crowther, born in Islington, north London, in 1936, the son of a railway carriage cleaner.
A major breakthrough came in the case when Neil Berriman (pictured), the son of Sandra Rivett – the nanny who was bashed to death (pictured below) – claimed to have found an almost-exact facial match for Lucan living Down Under in 2022
Lord Lucan was named as Ms Rivett’s killer in an inquest into her death in 1975
He also claimed to have been a ‘female impersonator’ in Canada before moving to India where he was regarded as the ‘western incarnation of the Dalai Lama’.
But pressed on whether he is Lucan, Mr Newman finally loses his monkish patience.
‘I do not know who the hell Lord Lucan is, okay?’, Mr Newman snapped.
‘Now, if you’re finished, I am getting bored with this interview.’
The producer then asked if there was a Buddhist approach for Mr Berriman to find peace after his 17-year search for his mother’s killer reached a dead end.
But Mr Newman failed to offer any spiritual comfort.
‘Are you aware that the world is about to go through a tremendous collapse?’, he said.
‘The whole human race, millions of years of evolution is about to terminate. All of you.’
He later shouted: ‘I’m not a f***ing Buddhist. I’m not anything.’
Once more, he categorically denied that he is Lord Lucan.
‘Wherever you are Neil, I can assure you I’m not that man, never have been, never will be,’ he said.
Despite the weight of evidence proving otherwise, Mr Berriman remains convinced that he is Lucan.
Lord Lucan was named as Ms Rivett’s killer in an inquest into her death in 1975.
In 2016, a court issued a ‘presumption of death’ certificate for Lucan, a ruling that cleared the way for his son, George Bingham, to become the 8th Earl of Lucan.
