MURDERED bomb disposal expert Ian Rimell had learnt he was going to be grandfather for the first time - just a day before he was shot and killed in Iraq.

The 53-year-old Kidderminster man was told the news by wife Jennifer hours before his car was ambushed by gunmen.

Grieving Mrs Rimell said he was "overjoyed" when she told him their eldest child Justine, 25, was three months pregnant.

She said: "He sounded surprised and was laughing. It was totally out of the blue, I had found out last month and was waiting for him to call to let him know.

"We are always ribbing each other about our ages so it was good to tell him he was going to be a grandfather."

But the family's joy was short-lived when the ex-serviceman was killed on the way to Mosul, in northern Iraq, last Thursday.

He was driving with a bodyguard when the vehicle - clearly marked with the name of the mine disposal charity Mr Rimell was working for - came under fire.

Speaking from her Siskin Way home - which the family moved into in 1995 - tearful Mrs Rimell said her husband's life was full of promise when it was cut short by the yet-to-be-captured killers.

She said: "The day before we spoke, we were planning to go on holiday. This Easter we had also talked about him retiring sometime between 55 and 60. And he loved to work in the garden when he came home."

The 50-year-old web developer said the news "still hadn't sunk in" and expressed shock at how her husband of 28 years died.

She said: "If he was in the Army then OK, that is your job, but he worked for a charity - he is out to help them and this is how he gets repaid."

Kidderminster-born Mrs Rimell added: "People would say 'don't you get worried?' but he was so calm and professional with his job. I have never seen him scared.

"I never worried until he said he was going to Iraq. I didn't realise it but at the time I must have been, I was forgetting to do things."

She said Mr Rimell's move to Iraq in late July to continue his work for the Mines Advisory Group was made even worse by a breakdown in communication, as he could only call home using an expensive and unreliable "satellite" phone.

Mr Rimell - who was born in Burton-on-Trent but came to think of Kidderminster as home - had spent Thursday clearing a scrap heap filled with explosives, before the gunmen struck.

His bodyguard Salem Ahmed Mohammed is still in a critical condition following the attack.

Mrs Rimell said: "There was a knock at the door - as soon as the guy said he was from MAG I knew something was wrong. I didn't need to be told.

"Until I actually see him then I still think it hasn't happened."

Eldest son Robert, 22, was comforting Mrs Rimell this week. She has another son, Simon, 19.

She thanked executive director at MAG, Lou McGrath, who had been a "rock" for the family.

They had moved to the town after Mr Rimell left the Army in 1994.

During and after his time in the forces he worked in Germany, Northern Ireland, Israel, Albania and Kosovo - all to help civilians put in danger by lethal explosives.

In 1991 he was awarded the British Empire Medal for his work.

Mrs Rimell said: "He loved what he was doing - there was no way I could have stopped him carrying on with what he did.

"You could never get a word in edgeways - he loved to tell people about his job, to let them know what was going on out there. I can't believe what has happened."