Aristocracy, true crime, murder, mystery
Slaughtered by the aristocracy: Remembering Sandra Rivett
--
And the case Lord Lucan failed to answer
Who was Sandra Rivett?
The third child of Albert and Eunice Hensby, Sandra was born on 16 September 1945 in the UK and her family moved to Australia when she was two. Sandra Rivett spent the first eight years of her life in Australia before returning to the UK where her family settled in Croydon, South London. Sandra was a popular child, described at school as “intelligent, although she does not excel academically”. Sandra worked for six months as an apprentice hairdresser before taking a job as a secretary in Croydon. Following a failed romance Sandra became a voluntary patient at a mental hospital near Redhill, Surrey, where she was treated for depression. She became engaged to a builder named John and took a job as a children’s nanny for a doctor in Croydon.
On March 13, 1964, Sandra gave birth to a boy named Stephen, but, as her relationship with John was failing, she returned home to live with her parents and considered giving the baby up for adoption. Her parents took on the responsibility and adopted him in May 1965. Sandra later worked at an old people’s home, before moving to Portsmouth to stay with her elder sister. While there she met Roger Rivett; the two married on June 10, 1967 in Croydon. Roger was serving as a Royal Navy able seaman and later worked as a loader for British Road Services, while Sandra worked part-time at Reedham Orphanage in Purley. In summer 1973 he took a job on an Esso tanker, returning to their flat in Kenley a few months later by which time Sandra was employed by a cigarette company in Croydon. Their marriage collapsed in May 1974 when, suspicious of Sandra’s movements while he was away, Roger went to live with his parents.
When Sandra divorced in May 1974 she was listed on the books of a Belgravia domestic agency and had been caring for an elderly couple in that district. Sandra began working for Lord and Lady Lucan as a nanny, caring for their three children in late 1974 at the family home in Belgravia. Sandra had been nanny to the Lucans’ children for only 10 weeks.
