EVANS SKINNER ARCHIVE

Like many, when I saw the news that Jack the Ripper had finally been identified, I thought, “Here we go again”. Who was the serial killer going to be this time? After all, the list of suspects contains the likes of Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence and even Lewis Carroll, so I was bracing myself for somebody really spectacularly silly; perhaps even Queen Victoria herself.

But as I read more about the story, it became apparent that this wasn’t some outlandish claim peddled by a money-grabbing junk historian.

In fact, it all seems very sensible.

In 2007, a businessman called Russell Edwards bought a shawl that was said to belong to Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper’s victims. Mr Edwards took the shawl to Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer in molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores, and a specialist in genetics and forensics.

Using a…