New evidence Lord Lucan fled to Africa, says BBC documentary

The fugitive aristocrat Lord Lucan fled to Africa to lead a secret life after the murder of his children's nanny, according to a new BBC documentary to be aired tomorrow. The programme will reveal that his children were taken to Africa twice so he could see them, but he never met them.

A secretary who worked for Lucan's friend John Aspinall said she was involved in helping to make travel arrangements for his children after Sandra Rivett was found dead at his estranged wife's Belgravia home in 1974. His wife claimed he attacked her after killing Ms Rivett, and his car was later found abandoned in Newhaven. He was declared dead by the High Court in 1999.

Police said yesterday they would consider any new evidence that emerges in the case.

The secretary, using a pseudonym, said she arranged for the peer's children to fly to Africa where he could "view them from a distance". She was invited to meetings where the earl, born Richard John Bingham, was discussed by her boss and Sir James Goldsmith, she claimed.

Lucan had three children, Frances, born 1964, George, 1967, and Camilla, 1970. "Instructions were to make arrangements for John Bingham to see his children, and to do that I had to book his two eldest children on flights to Africa," she said. "It was between 1979 and 1981, and and on two occasions I booked flights."

Inside Out is on BBC1 South East tomorrow, at 7.30pm