A NEW book claiming legendary boxer Freddie Mills was a vicious serial killer has been branded "absolute nonsense" by local historian and author Peter McInnes.

McInnes's friendship with the Bournemouth milkman, who went on to become a world boxing champion, spanned three decades.

"We met when I was 10 and Freddie was 16," McInnes, now 75, recalls at the Queen's Park home he shares with his wife Jane.

"My parents were running the Norfolk hotel and Freddie was living in Terrace Road. He had recently embarked on his ring career."

McInnes, a Cambridge Blue in 1946, boxed as an amateur all over Britain and Europe and alongside the likes of Henry Cooper while a member of the Army's international team.

He last saw Mills a week before the boxer's controversial death and remains convinced, more than 36 years later, that he was murdered.

According to a new book to be published next year Mills took terrible secrets to the grave, having killed at least eight prostitutes whose bodies were found in or around the River Thames between 1959 and 1965.

All the victims were strangled during sex with their killer, dubbed Jack the Stripper. The murderer has never been identified and the case remains unsolved.

The book's author, reformed south London gangster Jimmy Tippet, whose father, Jimmy Snr, was a leading contender for the British lightweight championship, says: "Freddie feared the police were closing in on him for the murders and decided to take his own life rather than face trial."

But McInnes has always believed that Mills was himself murdered. In the foreword to his book Freddie My Friend he writes: "Freddie Mills was a man of staunch character and immense courage and I do not accept that he ended his own life.

"My belief, and it is also that of his thousands of friends, fans and admirers, is that he was murdered by racketeers when he refused to continue paying protection money which was being extorted on his London night club.

"There is absolutely no evidence to support the theory that Mills was a killer or took his own life.

"When a celebrity dies it is inevitable that all sorts of stories are written about them. It saddens me that Freddie's name is being blackened yet again.

"Jimmy Tippet Snr was the man I watched and knew. He was born in 1931 and boxed professionally from 1949 until 1958.

"It is reasonable to assume that the son around whom this story hinges was in his early teens at the time of Freddie's death.

"Freddie was a devoted family man and there is absolutely no way he would have committed suicide. The suggestion that he was a serial killer is also ludicrous."

An inquest into Mill's death concluded the 46-year-old fighter committed suicide, but his family and close friends have always refused to believe the verdict.

The Kray twins and their "Firm" of heavies were mentioned in underworld circles. They still are today.

McInnes says: "Freddie was in financial difficulties and refusing to pay protection money. The word went round West End restaurants that an example was going to be made - Freddie was the example. He ended up paying with his life.

"Going to London was his downfall. Although he was the world light-heavyweight champion the real Freddie Mills was the one who boxed at Bournemouth ice rink once a fortnight."

Mills was found shot dead in his car on July 25, 1965. McInnes says it would have been impossible for him to shoot himself through the right eye in the back of his car.

"You have to bear in mind the length of the barrel of a .22 rifle between the muzzle and the trigger.

"Is the truth of the matter that suicide was swiftly and conveniently decreed in order to hide the truth?"

Mills' body was removed before the police arrived. The investigation into his death was led by Leonard "Nipper" Read, the detective who would later bring the Kray twins to justice.

While convinced that Mills committed suicide, Read does not believe he was a murderer.

In a poignant epilogue, McInnes writes: "Perhaps it will only be when the slur of the suicide verdict is finally removed that (Freddie) will truly rest in peace.

"My own hope is that, in good time, God will see fit to show mercy to those who were responsible for bringing about his premature death.

"Freddie Mills, I know, would have wanted it that way."