AN ESSEX man had admitted the ‘lion’ he saw near his home was actually a design on the wrapper of a chocolate bar.

38-year-old plasterer Tom Logan sparked panic after he ran into a Colchester police station screaming about a ‘massive hungry roaring lion’.

However it has since emerged that Logan was eating a Lion Bar at the time, and simply failed to distinguish between the picture of a lion on the packaging of the chewy confectionary and an actual lion.

He said: “All I remember was this immense slavering beast really near my mouth. It had a powerful smell, sort of like caramel.”

Police have since recovered a Lion Bar wrapper from the woods where the alleged beast was sighted.

Logan said: “You have to admit it’s realistic and scary. I can’t even look at it.”

Detective Inspector Emma Bradford said: “When we interviewed Tom Logan about his experience, he described the lion as having a disembodied head floating against a brown backdrop with the word ‘Lion’ appearing next to it in yellow writing.

“I went to the vending machine, got a Lion Bar and when I showed it to him, he started screaming.

“The fucking idiot.”

Logan said: “Nestle shouldn’t use such frightening images on their products. If the bar had been called ‘Horse Bar’ with a picture of a horse on it this never would have happened.”

It has since emerged that Logan recently called the police reporting ‘three leprechauns’ on his kitchen table, which were found to be the design on a Rice Krispies box.