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Friday 10 August 2007

I'm not Lord Lucan, Marton man says

Yahoo Xtra News Headline; says: 'An unemployed, rough-living Englishman says being misidentified as disgraced peer Lord Lucan is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute with a neighbour. "It's them. They've done this. I am not Lord Lucan," said Roger Woodgate, pointing toward a house along from his ramshackle property, 6km from the outskirts of Marton.

His row with a near neighbour will be the subject of an upcoming television series.

Mr Woodgate lives in the back of a 1974 Land-Rover, sleeping under old blankets. For company he has a cat, a tame possum named Redfern and a goat called Camilla. He said the rumour about him being the peer -- on the run since 1974 for the alleged murder of his children's nanny -- first surfaced in April. He was surprised to learn it had been a front-page story in a national newspaper but wasn't too bothered by subsequent media attention.

Two television news crews and three reporters from daily newspapers had visited this morning.

They would be disappointed, he said. At 62, he is 10 years younger than Lucan would be now. He came to New Zealand in June of 1974. The murder was in November of that year.

"Oh, and I'm also five inches shorter than Richard Bingham (Lord Lucan's actual name)."