WHITEHAVEN, England, (Reuters) – A gunman killed at least 12 people in a rampage through quiet towns in and around the scenic Lake District of northwest England yesterday in Britain’s worst shooting spree for 14 years.
Terrified locals and walkers were told to stay indoors as 52-year-old taxi driver Derrick Bird opened fire on people in towns across the rural, sparsely populated county of Cumbria, one of Britain’s top tourist destinations.
As well as the 12 dead, 25 people were wounded, including three in critical condition, in shootings in 30 locations.
After a huge manhunt, Bird’s body was found in a secluded area in Boot, a remote hamlet in the Eskdale valley, an area popular with hillwalkers. Police said he was believed to have killed himself.
“This has shocked the people of Cumbria, and around the country, to the core,” said Stuart Hyde, Assistant Chief Constable of Cumbria Police.
“We are still at a very early stage in our investigation and we are not able to really understand the motivation behind it or establish whether this was a premeditated or random attack.”
Queen Elizabeth said in a brief message she was “deeply shocked” by the news and shared the “grief and horror of the whole country.”
Multiple shootings are rare in Britain where there are strict gun controls.
In 1996, a gunman massacred 16 children and their teacher in the Scottish town of Dunblane, and a man shot dead 16 people in the southern English town of Hungerford in 1987.
The Dunblane killings led to the adoption of new laws which banned civilian ownership of handguns and forced owners of other weapons to obtain a certificate from the police.
Government figures showed there were certificates for almost 1.37 million shotguns in March 2009. Police said they were investigating where Bird got the two weapons he used in the attacks and whether they were legally owned.
The shootings began in the coastal town of Whitehaven where Bird worked.
“He had a dispute with a taxi driver yesterday morning which carried on into today. He absolutely lost the plot,” Lorraine Rimmer, who works for a taxi firm in the town, told Reuters. “He was a bit of a loner who hardly spoke to people.”
As police chased Bird for three hours through sleepy towns and villages across Cumbria, frightened locals were told to shelter indoors. The gunman eventually dumped his car and headed on foot through picturesque areas popular with walkers.
Landlord Sean King said police had warned him that the gunman was heading towards his pub in Boot, population 15. “It was very unnerving,” King told Reuters, saying there had been a stream of hikers heading to his pub for shelter.
He said Bird’s body was believed to have been found about 200 yards (metres) from his pub.
Prime Minister David Cameron said local communities would be shattered by the killings. “The government will do everything it possibly can to help the local community and those affected,” he told parliament.
During the manhunt, the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Seascale said all the site’s gates had been closed and staff had been told to stay at their posts, but its operations were unaffected.
