Gunman brings horror and death to tranquil tourist spot (News Feature)

By Anna Tomforde Jun 2, 2010, 17:52 GMT

London - A taxi driver known to locals as a 'nice guy' brought horror and death to one of the most peaceful corners of England Wednesday when he killed 12 people and wounded 25 in a shooting spree before turning the gun on himself.

The attacks in towns and villages in the Lake District of Cumbria shattered the normally tranquil surroundings of one of Britain's foremost tourists regions.

'I saw a car screeching off and a man saying 'help me'. He was bleeding heavily from the side of his face,' said Gary Toomey, who found one of the victims bleeding on his doorstep.

Cyclist Barrie Moss, who saw the attacker driving off in his Citroen Picasso car, holding a 'huge sniper rifle,' reported: 'At first I thought it was a toy but then the man drove off leaving behind a dying woman.'

'There are victims everywhere,' said one eyewitness about the mid- morning rampage which devastated communities in the north-west towns of Whitehaven, Seascale and Egremont, and a number of villages in between.

John Cook, a resident of Seascale, told the BBC he saw three dead bodies on a single street in the town. A local doctor, Barrie Walker, said two of the victims he certified dead had suffered 'horrific' gunshot wounds.

The shooting spree started at around 10:30 am (0930 GMT) in the coastal town of Whitehaven, where the suspect, named by police as Derrick Bird, killed a fellow-taxi driver by shooting him in the face, reports said.

He then proceeded in his car, shooting at random along the route, as police with helicopters were in pursuit, warning residents to stay indoors for their own protection.

The landlord of a local pub reported that 25 people - including 'shell-shocked tourists' - were 'holed up' in the Boot Inn while the search went on. Police said they found the body of the attacker in a wood.

The nearby nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, where 16,000 people work, was temporarily shut down during the police search.

Michelle Haigh, the landlady of The Hound Inn, where Bird was a regular, described him as a 'normal bloke.'

'He was a nice guy, nothing out of the ordinary. Everybody is shocked,' she said.

Reports said Bird, a divorced father of two, was believed to have had an argument with other men at the taxi rank late Tuesday. Unconfirmed reports said at least two taxi drivers were among the victims.

'He was quite a friendly person. It's just a tragic thing,' one driver from the taxi rank told the Press Association.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the he was 'shocked and alarmed' by the events and promised that the government would help the relatives of the victims and the 'shattered communities' to rebuild their lives.

While the exact background to the tragic events remains unknown, the shooting has rekindled memories of previous massacres linked to the names of British towns and villages.

On August 19, 1987, loner and gun fanatic Michael Ryan went on a shooting rampage in Hungerford, south-west Britain, killing 16 people, including his mother, before killing himself.

On March 13, 1996, former Scout leader Thomas Hamilton stormed the gymnasium of Dunblane primary school in Scotland, opening fire on a class of five-and six-year-olds, leaving 16 children and their teacher dead in a space of three minutes.

The latest attacks, which lasted just over three hours, have already entered the annals of crime as the Lake District killings.