A SHOTGUN-WIELDING taxi driver went on a killing rampage in the sleepy villages of northern England last night, shooting people in 11 separate locations before killing himself.
At least five people were believed to be dead and a further 30 wounded.
The 3 1/2-hour rampage terrified the picturesque Lakes District and surrounding parts of Cumbria, England’s least populated county, as police were left tending to survivors as the gunman drove from town to town in his green Citroen Picasso.
Derrick Bird, 52, is believed to have shot many of his victims in the face, with witnesses saying the bodies of cyclists, motorcyclists, drivers and pedestrians were left laying on streets.
“I am just amazed by the callousness of shooting people in the face with a shotgun – the severity of the injuries obviously was deliberate,” said a doctor in the small seaside town of Whitehaven.
The carnage began at 10.30am (7.30pm AEST) on a taxi rank in Duke Street, the main street of Whitehaven, when Bird apparently shot another taxi driver in the face.
As the body lay in the street, police raced down the small shopping street telling people to lock themselves inside shops and a bank but Bird had already driven off to continue his attacks.
“I don’t know if there had been a falling-out among taxi divers or a feud or something but it would not have been about criminals or drugs or anything like that,” said John Kane, a local councillor whose ward covers Duke Street.
Mr Kane said Bird, a large, balding man, was well-known and “a very placid man, very quiet, so something has pushed him over the edge”.
Soon after the first shooting, Barry McAleavy, who lives in Whitehaven just under a kilometre south of Duke Street, heard what he called “an almighty bang” and went outside to find a taxi sitting in the middle of the street with one window blown out.
Mr McAleavy told the BBC that he saw a screaming woman and a taxi driver who had been injured in the face and hands running away from the taxi. By the time police arrived and took the injured driver away for care, reports had come in of further shootings to the south.
A farmer was found dead in his field, as people were attacked in Egremont, 10 minutes drive south of Whitehaven, and then Gosforth, another 10 minutes drive south, and Seascale.
More than 1000 workers at the nearby Sellafield nuclear energy plant were locked into the plant amid unprecedented security as police scrambled to warn residents and tourists in the district and the nearby Lakes District.
Barrie Walker, a GP in Seascale, was called out to help treat somebody who had been injured and saw two bodies laying in a street. “One of the victims who was shot dead was very well known as a personality in the village,” he said.
In several cases, the first people to try to help at the crime scenes were firemen, who were traumatised after finding the bodies of friends and acquaintances, Dr Walker said.
Mike Saunders, the manager of the Seascale golf club, said two people from one family had been killed in the village and somebody else was seriously injured.
Police found Bird’s abandoned vehicle and tried to warn the hundreds of holidaymakers and hikers that he may have taken to the many footpaths that cut across the area’s beautiful open spaces.
The search focused on the small town of Boot, where residents were told by police to lock themselves inside their homes.
Bird’s body was found in a wood just outside the Lakes District village, 38km from Whitehaven shortly before 2pm.
Sue Matthews, a telephonist at A2B Taxis in Whitehaven, said Bird lived alone. “I know he had one son, who was grown up, and he lived alone. He was a regular in town and would have a night out,” she said. “It is like watching something from America.”
The incident recalls previous mass shootings in Britain. One of the most notorious was in 1987, when 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot 14 people dead in the town of Hungerford in Berkshire.
In 1996, 16 children aged five and six plus their teacher were shot dead in the gym of a primary school in Dunblane, by 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton.
These two incidents led to a tightening of laws on gun ownership. Registration is mandatory for shotguns, which must be kept in secure storage. Handguns were banned in 1997, and semi-automatic and pump-action rifles are also outlawed.
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