Interview with Glen Campbell – the Investigative Reporter behind new BBC documentary “Lucan”

How long have you been working on the Lucan case?

My interest in the Lucan case was sparked back in 1995 when I was working as a crime reporter for ITV. A late night drink with a Scotland Yard detective ignited my interest when he laid out quite clearly that having personally reviewed the evidence he felt the investigation into the murder of Neil’s mother, Sandra Rivett, had been thwarted by interference and obfuscation exerted by Lucan’s wealthy and powerful friends. In short I was told in 1995 that far from being dead, the police secretly suspected Lucan had escaped abroad, they just couldn’t prove it.

Did you discover anything new?

In 1999 I found two new Scotland Yard sources who said there was credible intelligence organised criminals had been recruited by Lucan’s wealthy friends to whisk him abroad. They passed me a name of one of these suspects but when I doorstepped him in Switzerland he denied involvement. I’d met a dead end. But the Lucan case is a ‘slow-burner’, new evidence emerges slowly, often when key people die or old alliances fracture. The discovery of Lucan’s plastic surgery medical records was an insight into the powerful cabal who protected him, and gave us leads into the murky world of the Claremont Set. Then in 2007 I interviewed a ‘new’ witness. Mandy Parks was a teenager in 1974 who had been babysitting at the house where Lucan was last seen alive. In her first TV interview Mandy swore that she had seen Lucan alive and preparing to flee the UK two days after Sandra Rivett’s murder. She was the first credible witness to back up Scotland Yard’s suspicions. Of course what I didn’t know when I interviewed Mandy was that throughout the late 1990’s the Metropolitan Police were in possession of credible intelligence Lucan was still alive and hiding in Africa. They even had a false name he was going under. The Scotland Yard scoping investigation reviewed all the evidence in the original files and collated the fresh intelligence that had flowed in since the murder of Sandra Rivett. It was a seminal piece of detective work but it was marked restricted/secret. In 2009 I was passed a copy. In a nutshell it said the police strongly suspected Lucan was alive in 2001 and hiding at various locations in Africa. This gave our research more impetus and motivated me to travel to Johannesburg to try and interview the Rt Hon Hugh Bingham, Lucan’s brother. My timing was just right. Hugh Bingham admitted his brother had escaped London in 1974 to a new life abroad because he felt he would never receive a fair trial. This confession was a major breakthrough. Inside information that smashed to smithereens the false story Lucan had committed suicide on or shortly after November 7, 1974.

After Hugh Bingham’s confession more people came forward to help. Marianne Robey had worked for one of Lucan’s closest friends and as a young woman in 1979 had been tasked to send the Lord’s two eldest children ‘on holiday’ to Africa so Lucan could see them ‘from afar’. The children were never aware their father was present. Then we were contacted by Davina Chambers. She saw one of our Lucan stories on the internet and reached out to offer us access to her late father’s files. Her dad had been the lead Detective on the Lucan case back in 1974 and had hoarded boxes of original Lucan documents in his loft at home which shed new light on the investigation and helped push us forward. The cold case of 74 was by 2015 very much on the boil.

Did you face any challenges when making this documentary?

The journey has been one of constant shifting sands. One year we would make significant break throughs only to be followed by months where we would be becalmed, with nothing new coming in. The biggest challenge has been assessing what information is credible and what is false. Our trip to Mozambique in 2014 was difficult because at that time the country was tricky to film in, especially when you were nosing around looking for an international fugitive living under a false identity. Australia was safer to investigate in but unknown to us has very strict privacy laws so for an investigative journalist not an easy place to establish the true identity of a man who has had five names. It has been a case of patience and perseverance.

Lucan, a 3×60’ for BBC Two and iPlayer, is made by Five Mile Films. It was commissioned by Clare Sillery, Head of Commissioning, Documentaries. The Series Director is Colette Camden. The Commissioning Editor is Beejal-Maya Patel.

Lucan is set to air on BBC Two and iPlayer this autumn.