A delivery driver has captured the shape of the Grim Reaper hunched over a grave at night in a cemetery.

Dean Johnson, 48, went there to prove that ghosts don't exist - but he ended up snapping what looks like a hooded spectre floating between the headstones.

Mr Johnson, from Daventry, Northamptonshire, spent the past 30 years trying to prove that ghosts don't exist and visits ghost hotspots around the country to debunk paranormal stories.

He said: 'It was really spooky - but I still don't believe in ghosts!'

Dean Johnson, 48, took the photo in Weedon Bec cemetery, Northamptonshire. He has spent the past three decades trying to prove ghosts don't exist - and said this picture hasn't changed his mind

'I was never expecting to see anything - I'd taken loads of random pictures around the whole cemetery, and then this came out.

'It was cold but not misty - I could see my breath, but nothing like what I caught in the picture.

'A lot of people think it looks like the Grim Reaper, but I think it looks like a misty monk with his right arm behind his back - especially with the cloak and hood.

'This is one of the clearest pictures I've taken in my life where I can't explain what the cause is.

'Often you can say someone's breathing into the frame or it's different shades of light playing tricks, but this is something else.'

Weeden Bec cemetery, where Mr Johnson took the 'Grim Reaper' shot, was the site of another 'ghost photo' earlier this month

Mr Johnson, a delivery driver for Waitrose, became convinced there was no afterlife following the death of his brother.

He added: 'I wanted to believe in ghosts when my brother was killed in a road accident - being really young, I wanted to believe he would be watching over me.

'I was desperate to find out of ghosts existed, and started reading ghost books to see what it's all about.

'But over the years I've been to hundreds of haunted places, and 95 per cent of the time you can explain away odd things in pictures - it's all about the power of suggestion.'

Mr Johnson has captured other 'unexplainable' spooky sightings on camera, including a Victorian nurse in the former Northamptonshire psychiatric hospital St Crispin's.

He took the 'Grim Reaper' shot in Weedon Bec cemetery, where a gardener snapped what looked like a ghost on horseback on New Year's Day.

When Richard Durham, 45, posted the picture online he received dozens of comments saying the outline of a hooded silhouette on a horse appeared near a row of headstones.