The Mysterious Disappearance of Lord Lucan

One of the best things about life is coming across something really fascinating which happened in the past, but about which you had never ever heard anything. For me, it's especially brilliant when the story has a British connection. You see a reference to an old event in a recent news report and curiosity takes over. The novelty keeps life interesting. Well today while reading an article in the Daily Mail about Zac Goldsmith, son of Anglo-French financier James Goldsmith and the Tory parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park in West London, I came across this sentence: "Miss Aspinall, 21, is the granddaughter of John Aspinall the conservationist and gambling entrepreneur who is believed by some to have helped Lord Lucan disappear in 1974." Helped someone disappear?! Two clicks to Wikipedia and hey presto:

"Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934), known as Lord Bingham before 1964, sometimes colloquially called "Lucky" Lucan, was a British peer, who disappeared in the early hours of 8 November 1974, following the murder of Sandra Rivett, his children's nanny, the previous evening. There has been no verified sighting of him since then."

And a Rivetting tale it is! Hereditary peer, compulsive gambler, recently separated, murdered nanny, disappears for life! Agatha Cristie-like mystery aside, the story had an interesting legal impact. Lucky Lucan was "was the last person ever to be declared a murderer by an inquest jury, shortly before the procedure was outlawed by the Criminal Law Act 1977". Cool piece of trivia! And it doesn't end there. The wiki entry includes the usual section on "Reported sightings". Usually I come across just one cool unheard of story from the past every week, but like London buses two arrived at once in the space of a few minutes. According to Lucky Lucan's wiki entry "In December 1974, police in Australia arrested a man they believed was Lucan but who was in fact the British MP John Stonehouse, who had faked his suicide a month earlier." A British MP faking his own suicide and hiding Down Under?! I tell ye what, life used to be a lot more interesting in the good ol'days!

2008 Mumbai Attacks Conviction And Capital Punishment

The alleged sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks has been convicted for murder and waging war with India. The Pakistani national is likely to be sentenced to death. Although executions are legal in India, they are rarely used. In 1983, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the death penalty should be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases". The last execution was in 2004 when a security guard was hanged in Kolkata for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl fourteen years earlier. However, it appears the last trained hangman in India has retired, leaving the country with no executioners! And even if Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab is sentenced to death, it will merely result in "a lengthy series of appeals and an indeterminate wait on death row". Ninety-five countries have abolished capital punishment. But what do you think? Are there exceptional crimes that deserve punishment beyond a lifetime of incarceration? Share your thoughts!

[Poll #1559687]

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