Lucan (spoilers)

[TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis]

I binge watched this yesterday, found it a really good watch, though the ending was a bit wishy-washy.

What did others think?

I found it pretty unlikely that they could go to all those lengths, follow all those highly niche clues, and find someone who a) wasn't Lucan but b) had such a strong match on facial recognition and c) spouted so many "appropriate" things like going to Eton (unless the edit just filtered out him saying dozens of things that didn't fit).

And in the end, I thought it was odd that they took one old man's word for it that it was a different person, whilst not taking the same verification steps!

Very sad overall. Especially the ex boyfriend of Sandra who asked her to swap date night, she wasn't even supposed to be there.

I think he did escape to Africa, possibly now dead - or possibly the guy in Australia.

I don't believe all those coincidences were wrong. That was Lucan imho.

I'd like to have known if Neil ever met his half brother Steven.

I also can't blame Lucan's children for lying, if they are. They didn't ask for this, and it seems to have ruined their relationship with their poor mother up until her suicide.

I've listened to a number of podcasts about Lucan so I was thrilled to see this documentary.

I have to say I'd love to believe the romantic view that he got away, people kept his secret & he lived a whole other life.

However, for the following reasons I think he did none of this & died in the channel.

*He LOVED His children. I fail to understand him never seeing them again.

*He was a reckless risk taking gambler. People like that slip up.

*absolute creature of habit! He ate at & attended the club every day reportedly having the same meals over & over. Not sure he'd adapt well to a new life.

*people aren't this good at keeping secrets.

I dunno, according to the woman, he DID take the risk of having them shipped out so he could see them.

And as for slip ups - there is possible evidence of his existence. Wouldn't those count as slip ups? And as for secrets, the same applies, and this isn't happening in the days of social media and 24/7 rolling news.

I do agree more on the point about his being a creature of habit, but that's balanced by the risk taking. Fifty years is a long time to form new habits.

That woman's story didn't seem to stack up. I wondered if she had made up a story to be special & have something to say. Fantasists!

Absolutely especially if it means you keep your freedom.

The facial recognition results from different companies said that there was a strong likelihood that the old man in Australia was Lucan.

Neil was doing well to get what information he could out of the old man. There's so many coincidences that ring true.
All those different identities, the fabricated passport...

I think Neil also got in the way of getting more info, if he'd had a cooler head they might have got a lot further.

But then they wouldn't have got anywhere near as far without him.

If they'd visited a couple of times and managed to snag some DNA... Illegal probably, but interesting.

I feel like "Christopher's" demeanour changed hugely after the accusations. He'd have probably spilled more if he wasn't suspicious.

DNA is the key. If they had been cleverer they would have flattered the old man and built up a bit of a rapport . Put his mug in their bag or something to test. That would rely on Lucans children giving DNA of course. What I found interesting was the old man’s behaviour. There was a very nasty person under the gentle demeanour that he showed initially. It’s perfectly possible that Lucan has disassociated from the event and sort of split off into multiple identities. The old man is obviously suffering from some sort of personality disorder or mental health issues. Either that or he’s being very clever.
I wonder what the carer believes , that was a bizarre set up the old man had . If he isn’t a Buddhist, he’s living with one and had an altar etc. there were so many coincidences it’s hard to brush off the idea that he is Lucan. There may be a part of him that doesn’t care if he’s identified now. At his age he has had his life,
snd maybe he wants to see his children again one last time. It’s odd that he agreed to the meetings anyway. If you were a fugitive murderer, you would hardly let any old Tom Dick or Harry into your house like that.

There were lots of unanswered questions . Why didn’t Neil track his brother down? Why did his mother have two children when she wasn’t married? Who was their father ? I felt very sorry for his poor wife and daughter. What a way to live, in the shadow of that awful event. I’m surprised his marriage had survived. I was struck by the last exchange he Neil had with the producer. She got what was going on and tried to reason with him. I think the reporter should have done this long ago rather than encourage Neil to become more and more invested and unhinged. I don’t feel he cared about Neil, only about getting a scoop for himself. It left an uncomfortable taste .

Also the only way the old man could have been Lucan is if he had appropriated another man’s identity . Perhaps they looked very similar. It seems a bit of a stretch. I do believe he got away. Plenty of Nazis did it. I felt Aspinall knew a lot more than he was saying. Also Lucans brother moving to Africa six months later and supposedly telling the reporter where Lucan had gone off camera? It’s all too bizarre for words. It was a fascinating documentary.

The other thing is that clearly the old man will keep running so he may not be easy to find again.

ALSO… who was the other man staying overnight in the house the night of the murder?? Maybe it wasn’t Lucan at all!

Aspinall was vile in his opinion that you must help friends if they bludgeon a woman to death.

I don't think the other man idea holds water to be honest. I read elsewhere that Lucan knew that Thursday was Sandra's usual day off and knew that his wife went down to make a cup of tea at 9pm. He was already in debt, harassing her and had failed to take custody of the children.

He'd drunk two bottles of vodka, so even if he did think it was Veronica at first, he was probably happy to keep hitting.

I love that Sandra called him out when he did creepy breathing down the phone and told him to fuck off.

I'd be interested in watching this @TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis (love the name!) but there are a few Lucan programmes when I do a search. Which particular one did you watch please? Apologies if it says somewhere in the thread but trying to avoid spoilers. Thanks

It's on iPlayer :) yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the murder, I notice.

Thank you and blimey, 50 years, I remember the news story when it happened.

It was one of the most tedious and silly programmes I've ever watched.

I'm really surprised that the BBC made it.

It was like one of the badly-made documentaries on Channel 5.

Neil was obsessed and I felt sorry for his wife. He never even attempted to find his brother.

I found it fascinating, but agree Nigel was acting very inappropriately.

It WAS a bit channel 5.

I thought it was great. Not chanel 5 at all. A great yarn, very surreal. I'm glad Colette told Neil to stop it. Though he was obviously vulnerable and she must have been previously egging him on for the sake of the film. I thought Neil was wonderful, very tenacious and personable and human in his failings. I'd love for him to stop and take care of himself and Kim now. However, if my brain and all of our brains are shouting DNA, I'm sure Neil's will be too!
PS I didn't think he looked like Lord Lucan at all. Don't know what that facial AI was on about.

I think Lucan was a typical narcissistic sociopath. I think wanting his children was more about having power and control over his wife. The letter he wrote Michael Stoop, reveals much about his personality "a crooked solicitor and rotten psychiatrist destroyed me..." I very much doubt the psychiatrist was 'rotten' but a)simply wouldn't do as Lucan wanted b) could see past the veneer of Lucans personality. Lucan stalked his wife, talked of killing her (friends dismissed this as a drunken ramble) he tried to blacken her name and use her psychological state as a way to undermine her (her psychological state probably exacerbated by her husband). We now know so much about the danger of stalking and how it inevitably leads to aggression and violence, ditto talking about killing someone 🚩 all the way.
Lucan was clearly a very unhappy and damaged and spoilt individual, he was addicted to gambling, he was an alcoholic, he wanted the finer things in life but he didn't want to work, he got into a huge amount of debt...I think very few women would put up with this behaviour now, or at least they'd come on to mumsnet who'd tell them in no uncertain terms she was married to a selfish prick, get her ducks in a row and leave.
One man's actions and the ripple effect is massive. His poor kids, his poor wife.

I have to agree.

I actually thought Neil was a deeply disturbed man who - if wrong - essentially bullied a frail old man who had nothing to do with his mother's murder and who was in his final years. The old man came across to me as suffering significant cognitive decline so much of what he said has to be seen through that lens.

The facial recog. work was interesting but I didn't understand why they didn't run the same test with the photos of Peter and the old man. I personally suspect their % would be even higher than the match with Lucan because (to me) the old man looked far more like the Peter photos than the old photos of Lucan.

If I were Neil's mother it would break my heart to think of all the time and money he has wasted - seemingly at the cost of damaging his current family relationships and ignoring all the happiness he could be having with them. And for what, even if Lucan is alive and is found, he is 90 years old now.

I personally came away from the program sad that Neil had wasted his life like that.

Exactly. His wife did t speak to her children for over thirty years and then killed herself. What an awful legacy for them.

This sounds a fascinating programme.

There was a TV drama with Christopher Eccleston playing Aspinall. In their story Lucan became a liability so they told him he was going back to the U.K. and then dumped him into the Channel.