Protesters blockade Jack the Ripper ‘sick horror attraction’

Hundreds of people protested outside a new Jack the Ripper museum which was originally billed as a project dedicated to the history of women in the East End of London.

Former Google diversity chief Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe obtained planning permission from Tower Hamlets council to convert an empty shop in Cable Street into a museum which would be “the only dedicated resource in the East End to women’s history”.

But demonstrators who blockaded the entrance on Tuesday accused him of trying to open a “sick horror attraction” instead. Exhibits will include autopsy photographs, medical instruments and clothes from the killer’s victims.

A skull-and-crossbones logo on the shopfront has been painted over.

Kate Connelly, 29, and Jemima Broadbridge, 45, who led the protest, said that if the building’s original purpose is not met, planning consent should be withdrawn. Ms Connelly, a PhD student, told the crowd: “I think it’s a grotesque insult and not representative of women’s struggles.”

Ms Broadbridge said: “We want him to deliver what he promised or shut up shop for good.”