A GUNMAN on the run after killing off-duty policeman PC Ian Dibell told a bemused stranger: “I’ve had a terrible, terrible day. I could do with a pint.”

Retired lorry driver Ivor Starling, 74, came face to face with Peter Reeve, right, two hours after Reeve gunned down PC Dibell in Clacton.

Mr Starling had just returned to his home in Weeley with brother-in-law Trevor Discombe, 80, and neither was aware of the shooting.

Mr Starling said: “We’d been to see a car at Great Bromley and had seen loads of police cars coming down from Colchester.

“When we came back, I dropped off my brother-in-law next door and this fellow came running across to the car.He said, ‘I’m looking for a taxi rank.’ I told him he was in Crow Lane, Weeley, and wouldn’t find one around here.”

Mr Starling said Reeve appeared distressed and said he wanted to go to Witham. The killer then confided: “I’ve had a terrible, terrible day – a most awful day. You wouldn’t believe what’s happened to me today.”

Mr Starling said he even invited the gunman into his home to call a cab, but Reeve refused.

Mr Starling added: “If he’d come in. my wife would have made him a cup of tea.

“He was in a terrible state. My brother-in-law said a taxi would cost a fortune, and told him there was a train station around the corner.

“The man said he could do with a pint and trotted off up Crow Lane in the direction of the council offices.”

Ten minutes later, Mr Starling’s son phoned to tell him a policeman had been murdered in Clacton.

Mr Starling said: “I put on the TV and saw it was a fellow in his sixties. I thought, Jesus Christ, it could have been him!

“The next morning there was a photo of Reeve and it was him, without a doubt, so I phoned the police.

“I told them he had a bluey anorak, jeans and short, grey hair.”

Mr Starling said Reeve, of Fairlop Close, Clacton, had been sweating and his face was flushed, but he had noticed was nothing in his July 9 encounter to suggest he had killed a man two hours before.

Mr Starling added: “He was in a very confused state. “He seemed very disturbed. He wasn’t carrying anything, he must have had the handgun in his coat. But without knowing what had happened, I would never have been fearful of the man. I just thought ‘poor old boy’.”