A man who says he escaped from Ivan Milat has made the bombshell claim that the notorious serial killer did not act alone.

Ian Hayman, 64, said he was trying to hitchhike his way home in 1971 when — at the age of just 15 — he was picked up by a driver he now believes was Milat.

On Monday he told A Current Affair the man he believed was Milat was accompanied by another man in the car, in an interaction he described as “scary as hell”.

Hayman said he considers himself “extremely lucky” to still be alive today.

He’d been sacked from his job at Warwick Farm Racecourse and decided to hitchhike home to Wollongong. He was picked up by two men in a two-tone Holden who pulled over and asked where he was going.

media_camera Ian Hayman says he considers himself “extremely lucky” to still be alive today. Source: A Current Affair/Nine News

On the journey, he said the two men started asking him questions about his family, and their knowledge of his movements.

When the driver missed a turn-off, a small red flag went up.

“It just seemed a little strange because as we were driving along the Wollongong turn-off was there, and the Canberra turn-off was there, and they took the Canberra turn-off,” Hayman said.

He asked the two men: “Wait, where are we going?”

The passenger replied, “What do you think we are, stupid? That we don’t know the road?” They then just kept driving.

media_camera The man believes Ivan Milat did not act alone.

Hayman said that up until this point, the driver had said nothing. Ian told them about his older brother, who was a paratrooper in the army.

He then said the passenger told him the driver — who he referred to as “Ivan” — had also been in the army.

“And then he looked at me,” Hayman said of the driver. “The look on his face in the rearview mirror … it was just horrible. Just looking in the mirror at me. Scary eyes.”

Still, Hayman wasn’t too concerned. He then said he noticed what looked like a cowboy revolver in the glovebox as the door was broken and hanging open.

It was clearly a weapon favoured by Milat, who liked to call himself Texas.

Hayman still didn’t think he was in any immediate danger, until the driver and passenger started arguing about whether his family knew he was coming home.

Finally, the pair became aggressive and threw him out of the car. They sped off with the door still open.

media_camera The Milats grew up with knives and guns as a part of everyday life.

But the ordeal wasn’t over. Hayman crossed the road to try and hitch a ride back towards Wollongong. He said the same car had come back, and parked about 100 metres down from Hayman.

Luckily, right at that moment, another car — being driven by a priest — pulled over, and safely took Hayman home.

Hayman said the experience left him feeling ill. “Sick. Totally sick. In my head, in my stomach … my heart-rate was skyrocketing.”

He believes he knows the identity of the passenger today, but he cannot be named for legal reasons.

media_camera Milat’s days are now numbered due to terminal cancer.

Despite Milat serving life behind bars for his brutal crimes, there have repeatedly been claims that the murderer did not act alone.

In 1992, British tourist Joanne Walters was found clutching several strands of hair. Original forensic testing showed that the hair matched neither Milat nor Walters, but a subsequent forensic investigation concluded it did match Walters’ own hair.

A jury found Milat guilty on July 27, 1996. He was handed seven consecutive life sentences for the murders of Walters, Caroline Clarke, Simone Schmidl, Anja Habschied, Gabor Neugebauer, James Gibson and Deborah Everist, without the option of parole.

He was also convicted of the attempted murder, false imprisonment and robbery of Paul Onions, a British backpacker who escaped an attempted kidnapping at gunpoint.

Originally published as Man’s bombshell Ivan Milat claim