John Humble's DNA was found on an envelope sent by Wearside Jack

John Humble sent three letters and an audio tape to detectives in the 1970s.

He was dubbed Wearside Jack after police resources were diverted to his home city of Sunderland while Peter Sutcliffe committed three more murders.

Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said the jail term was severe but could not be called "wrong in principle or excessive".

Humble, 50, of Flodden Road, Sunderland, was arrested in 2005 after police matched his DNA, taken after a minor offence, against saliva on an envelope sent to Ripper squad detectives in 1979.

Before he was jailed in March, Leeds Crown Court heard that he had a fascination with the original Jack the Ripper, who terrorised the streets of east London in 1888.

The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was jailed in 1981 and given 20 life sentences for killing 13 women and attempting to kill seven more.

'Chronic alcoholic'

Dismissing Humble's appeal, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said the case was "uniquely serious and had possibly fatal consequences".

He said: "The offences called for a very severe sentence."

In a case so serious the "issues of personal mitigation and passage of time lose much of their influence".

Humble's counsel David Taylor told the judges that at the time of the first letter he was 22 and already a chronic alcoholic.

He would drink from the moment he woke up and during the day and night until he passed out.

Mr Taylor said that Humble, who had been an alcoholic for 27 years and had tried to commit suicide, had difficulty explaining why he had written the letters.

He told the court: "He has been a model prisoner since he has been in custody.

"Ironically the fact that he has been in custody probably saved his life."