PENSIONER Phillip Batchelor was the last person to see tragic Ivory Wave victim Michael Bishton alive.

Mr Batchelor, 75, was walking his cross-Alsatian dog Mutley on cliffs at Culver Down, near Sandown. He spotted Michael wearing an England top and acting strangely on the wrong side of a safety fence.

He said he feared that Michael would jump or fall to his death but did not dare intervene because he seemed out of control. The retired crane driver said: “He was so full of beans that it would not surprise me at all if he had taken drugs.”

Mr Batchelor set off with Mutley on their daily walk at 7.30am. He said: “I take Mutley out every morning on the cliffs at the same time and I know nearly everyone up there by sight. There are other dog walkers, joggers and bird watchers. They keep to the paths.

“I saw this lad at 8am. I had never seen him there before. He was on the wrong side of the fence right out on the cliff edge. He was wearing an England top and shorts and looked very peculiar. He was just bouncing and running around, showing off by the edge.

“He seemed to have boundless energy, bouncing around like a livewire. He was stretching his arms out sideways like a Dambuster as if he thought he could fly. I didn’t know what was going on in his mind – whether he was a jumper or just a bloody idiot running along the edge.

“But at 75, I was not going to climb over a fence to see if I could help him. He was a big lad and could easily have picked me up and chucked me over the edge. I nearly lost sight of him and could just see his head in the distance but then he came back.

“The last thing I saw was him apparently stretching his hamstrings as he was facing the sea. I never saw him jump of fall.”

Mr Batchelor added: “I gave a statement to police about what I saw. When I described the lad, they said he was the one pulled out of the sea. It is terrible for his family. It is very sad that a young life should be wasted like that.”

Mr Batchelor said that a friend’s son had also taken Ivory Wave recently. He said: “It almost blew his top off. Now he is having counselling about drugs. I would like to see a stop to this drug being sold.

“I don’t believe in drugs. It is bad enough when you have to take them for medical reasons rather than for fun. I think it is disgusting that people are making money out of selling them to young people.”