Looking back: City gripped by Ripper copycat stabbing of boy

But unlike the Whitechapel murders, more than one person was arrested over the mutilation of a young boy committed in circumstances that led an Echo reporter to record were “of the highest degree strange and revolting.”

The victim was a quiet, inoffensive boy called Percy Searle, just eight years old and 3ft 3in tall.

Deemed as bright, active and intelligent by his headmaster, he was last seen alive at a village shop where he had been on an errand by his father before heading down a busy thoroughfare when he bumped into a friend called Robert Husband.

They chattered for a few minutes before parting. But within a minute Husband, who was 11, claimed he had heard screams coming from the direction where Searle had gone and told passing dairyman John Platt he feared his pal had been murdered.

“There’s a man up there murdering a boy,” he insisted.

His suspicions were well founded.

Clasping the youngster’s hand, Platt ran to the spot, a deep shadow beneath a wall of Manor House School where the cries had been heard and discovered Searle, covered in mud, lying on his left side, a knife having been thrust into his neck and his face so covered in blood that he was all but unrecognisable.

Unfortunately, Searle, still holding the parcel he had collected, died within seconds, unable to give any clue of what had shockingly occurred.

A large crowd gathered at the scene before the police arrived, launching their investigation with a search of every outhouse, building or place of concealment, but without success.

Amazingly, it was not until much later that evening on November 26, 1888, that the supposed murder weapon was found – just eight yards away, close to a pool of blood – and rumours began circulating it had been the work of the Ripper.

Their conviction strengthened by the fact that only a few days earlier a letter purportedly written by the mass murderer had been left on the shutter of another shop in Havant.

But it soon became obvious the savage blow inflicted on young Searle had not been done by a skilled hand.

However, an arrest was quickly made after a man had been reported acting suspiciously near Emsworth railway station. The individual, wearing a sealskin cap and a long coat, was carrying a small bundle.

As he was about to board a train, he was arrested by Sergeant Knapton, the senior officer at Havant, trembling violently and exhibiting considerable emotion, without saying a word.

His detention looked increasingly justified when he was found with a knife.

However, it soon became apparent he was innocent, two young men to whom he had been speaking in the village had not realised he was deaf and needed help at which way to go.

It transpired he was a handyman who had been despatched with a colleague by his employers to lay pipes at a local brewery.

Mr Platt was evidently the key witness and he told Sgt Knapton his impression was that the murderer was a stranger to Havant but the motive for the crime was beyond comprehension.

Hours later, police received reports of a stranger who had arrived in Havant on the morning of the murder and left baggage at a hotel saying he would return that night but never did.

The man was regarded as an eccentric and a burgeoning crowd followed him from Emsworth to Chichester where they lost sight of him.

But his antics were so peculiar he was dubbed ‘The Ripper’.

However, detectives concentrated their search on the statement of Husband who was adamant that from a lamp light he had seen a man doing something to a boy.

“My attention was called to the matter by a voice making a queer squeal, like a gurgling noise.

"I distinctly saw the form of a man and a boy. The man had the boy on the ground. I shouted ‘murder’ as loud as I could and the man ran away.”

However, detectives were puzzled by the information because it was contrary to what Platt had said – that on his way home, he must have passed the murder scene at the very moment Searle was being mutilated, yet he had neither seen, nor heard anything.

Platt maintained a similar account at the opening of Searle’s inquest the following day, also revealing that when he asked Husband to find a police officer he did not return.

Instead, the boy went home where he was found washing his hands. His boots were mud covered and he looked nervous.

Platt maintained it would have been impossible for Husband to have seen what was going on where the body was found.

At the hearing’s conclusion, Sgt Knapton went to Husband’s home and arrested him on a charge of murder. The youngster replied: “I never did it”.

He was taken to the police station, crying piteously.

Charged, he appeared in court the following morning when magistrates heard how Husband had changed his story, saying he had seen another boy at the scene when he shouted ‘murder’.

The court also heard from errand boy Henry Wheeler who claimed Husband had tried to sell him the knife which belonged to the victim’s brother.

“I have no doubt it is the same – I would swear to it.”

After studying a plan and photographs of the area, the bench had a brief consultation before committing Husband to stand trial at Winchester.

From the dock, he once more re-asserted his innocence, arriving at Winchester jail for his remand looking indifferent and unconcerned.

His trial at Hampshire Assizes before Mr Justice Stephen (pictured above) opened on December 19 when the prosecution reiterated what the public knew through the Daily Echo reports and based much of their cases on different accounts Husband had supplied.

“He stated facts which he knew were not true,” prosecutor Mr Temple-Cook alleged. “He told a deliberate lie on two or three occasions of the murder.”

He had also been that night flourishing a knife and was heard to say he was Jack The Ripper, though he conceded he had learnt of the horrific Whitechapel murders by reading the papers.

So what the motive? He asked the jury. A feeling of revenge towards the deceased after his mother had complained to Husband’s father.

Husband had refused to sell him coal at the shop where he was working.

The pair talked the matter over and she left, believing it had been resolved, but two days later, on the evening of the murder, Husband had made a veiled threat to Searle’s brother and was brandishing the knife, proclaiming ‘I am Jack The Ripper.’

The barrister submitted: “He saw the little boy in the shop and something came over him to induce him to follow the boy down the road and kill him.”

Husband was not called to give evidence – instead defence barrister Mr Masters slowly dismembered the prosecution’s case, dismissing any notion of a motive.

He reasoned: “Unless it is proved and it is proved by the evidence placed before you that the boy is wicked, precocious, malevolent or revengeful, what did it amount to? From the evidence, I cannot see anything.”

He advised jurors to hesitate before accepting the knife was the murder weapon. “There might be many similar ones in Winchester.

"Do not launch yourself into a sea of speculation in which you are invited to plunge. It is too speculative.”

Following the judge’s summing-up, jurors only retired for about 10 minutes before returning their not guilty verdict, Husband leaving the dock without saying a word and noticeably without displaying any emotion, relief or surprise.

Husband accompanied his mother on the train journey to home.

There he was greeted by schoolmates who congratulated him on his acquittal and a public subscription raised the sum of £70 to help pay for his defence.

But who killed Searle will never be known. Police were sure Husband had been the killer and the case was never re-opened.