Spanish investigator Jose Luis Abad names Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline as the man who brutally murdered at least five women in London in 1888.

Mr Abad, 84, makes the claim in his book Jack the Ripper: The Most Intelligent Murderer In History, published in Spain this week.

Handwriting expert Mr Abad bases his claims on a comparison of Chief Inspector Abberline’s writing with that in Jack the Ripper’s diary, a 63-page document that surfaced in Liverpool in 1992. It mentioned the detective 24 times

Mr Abad, a member of the Spanish Graphology Society, said: “Having compared the handwriting I have no doubt Inspector Abberline was in fact Jack the Ripper. It sounds unbelievable, but the fact is handwriting does not lie.”

The Ripper’s diary was attributed to James Maybrick, a Liverpool cotton dealer other investigators have cited as the Ripper.