By Ted JeoryA MAN was being questioned last night over the murder of a former traffic warden who was found battered to death at her bungalow.Detectives were quizzing the 35-year-old from Colchester after he was arrested yesterday on suspicion of murdering Jean Dicker, from Clacton.

By Ted Jeory

A MAN was being questioned last night over the murder of a former traffic warden who was found battered to death at her bungalow.

Detectives were quizzing the 35-year-old from Colchester after he was arrested yesterday on suspicion of murdering Jean Dicker, from Clacton.

Mrs Dicker, 58, was found lying in the hallway of the Craigfield Avenue bungalow she shared with her son, Steve, on January 29 last year.

A post-mortem examination revealed she had died of serious head injuries. Police also discovered Mrs Dicker's mobile phone, handbag and credit cards were missing.

An Essex Police spokesman said yesterday: “A man was this afternoon arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of a 58-year-old woman in Clacton.

“A 35-year-old man from Colchester is currently being questioned by detectives at a police station in north Essex.”

Mrs Dicker had only just started to rebuild her life after the death of her husband of 40 years, Len, who died in May 2002. The couple had retired to Clacton three years ago after she retired as a traffic warden in 1996.

The mother-of-two had been a gymnastics coach in Colchester and West Mersea, a keen motorcyclist and a dog-lover who exhibited at Crufts.

At her funeral in June last year, a tribute written by her daughter, Tracy Kinton, a 37-year-old housing officer, described her mother as a “spirited person” who won a bravery trophy in 1995 while working as a traffic warden in Colchester because she helped catch two burglars who had stolen a ring.

ted.jeory@eadt.co.uk