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© REXLord Lucan at a West End club in London back in 1973
The wife of missing aristocrat Lord Lucan, who disappeared after murdering his childrens' nanny, has told how she would have covered up his crime has he not turned on her and left her too badly injured to help.

The Countess of Lucan also admitted she still harbours feelings for her husband, despite the fact he beat her savagely with a lead pipe, leaving her with an inch-long scar on her forehead.

She said: "I remember the happy times. I have three children by him. He is still a part of my life and a part of me, even though it was all so long ago.

"If I could have helped him I would have done."

Lucan disappeared in 1974 after bludgeoning Sandra Rivett, the nanny, to death at his home in Belgravia, London. His wife claims he had mistaken Rivett for her in the darkened basement.

The couple had recently been involved in a bitter custody battle and when she entered the room he attacked her but she managed to fight him off and escape.

The Countess said: "I would have helped him if it was possible. I wouldn't have given him money, I would have said 'go away I will handle it from here.

"But I was too badly injured to try to help him. I had to have my injuries seen to.

"If he had not attacked me I would have said get out. I have not seen you. I would have protected him."

Days after the murder Lord Lucan's blood-soaked car was found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex.

There have been numerous supposed sightings over the years but what happened to him has remained a mystery. He was officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999.

Lady Lucan, 74, also dismissed claims made in a BBC Inside Out programme to be aired tonight (Monday) that her husband set up a new life in Africa as "nonsense".

"He was not the sort of Englishman to cope abroad," she said.

"People are making a fast buck out of the name Lucan," she said. "It does not make sense. He died soon after the murder.

"It's rubbish, I can guarantee they didn't go to Africa. It's ridiculous, it's false.

"The children were wards of court, at boarding school. I was their carer, I would have known if they had gone to Africa.

"I had to get permission from the court to take them abroad or even in to the country. I never took them abroad.

"He likes England, he couldn't speak foreign languages and preferred English food. "These are people making a fast buck. It's so obvious he's dead."

A "witness", who worked for Lucan's close friend, John Aspinall, claims in the documentary that she arranged for his children to fly to Africa where the peer could view them "from a distance".

But the Countess, who still lives in Belgravia, London, just a few hundred yards from the house where the murder took place, said: "It was nearly 40 years ago, he'd be 76 now. I read about this programme and thought 'Oh dear, not again.' They have been trying for sometime to get this off the ground."

She believes Lucan committed suicide by throwing himself off a ferry at Newhaven, East Sussex, and said she did not have him pronounced dead for years as they did not have the money to pay death duties and school fees.

"He was not pronounced dead so we could pay for the children's education," she said.

"That was the reason it took so long.

"If his body was found my son would have been the Earl of Lucan and we would have to pay death duties.

"We would not have been able to pay for the children's education. They were only four, seven and 10 so there was a lot of time ahead."

She says Lucan deliberately threw himself into the ferry propellers that would mangle the body and make sure no trace could be found to prove he was dead.

"It was tremendously brave of him to have done that," she said. "I think he was thinking of the children and their future.

"He knew a lot about boats, he would have jumped off close to the propellers that would cut up his body so he could never be found."

Lucan was found guilty in his absence of Miss Rivett's murder by a coroner's jury in 1975.