CUMBRIAN TAXI driver Derrick Bird may have deliberately targeted more of his victims than previously thought, according to police.
Initially, it had been thought that three of Bird’s 12 victims shot to death were chosen: his twin brother David; Whitehaven taxi driver Darren Rewcastle and Frizington solicitor Kevin Commons. However, police now say there are grounds for believing that Jimmy and Jennifer Jackson, who were shot in Wilton approximately an hour after the Whitehaven shootings, may also have been on a “hit-list” prepared by Bird.
Mrs Jackson had worked with the Inland Revenue office in Whitehaven years ago, while there are unconfirmed reports that her husband had worked in Sellafield for a time alongside Bird, who was dismissed from the job after he stole timber.
Mrs Jackson was shot in her garden as she readied to catch up with her husband who had gone for a walk earlier. Having shot her, Bird travelled up the road and murdered her husband, who had been chatting to neighbours.
Police are gradually putting together an accurate timeline of the killings, which are believed to have started with the death of his twin at his farmhouse in Lamplugh in the early hours of the morning. The body, however, was not discovered until 11am.
Mr Commons was killed shortly after 10am – and not earlier, even though a witness put Bird outside Mr Commons’s home before 6am. Shots were reported to the police by locals at 10.20am.
A number of armed police were despatched to the house, and found Mr Commons’s body. All of Cumbria’s 42 on-duty armed officers were alerted when the shootings occurred in Whitehaven 15 minutes later. “Our officers were on the scene within minutes but due to Bird’s knowledge of local roads, he had fled in his vehicle and was travelling south through the town firing shots along his way,” said Chief Constable Craig Mackey.
The chief constable rejected accusations that his force should have brought the killing spree to an end before Bird had the chance to commit suicide in a forest near the Lake District and was clearly stung by the criticism of the force’s handling of events. However, senior police officers elsewhere have expressed considerable sympathy for the challenges the officers faced, given the number of 999 calls that were being received; the remoteness of the location and the number of roads that were available for Bird to launch his attacks.
Meanwhile, prime minister David Cameron visited the area yesterday with home secretary Theresa May and went to considerable lengths not to be seen to be exploiting the tragedy for political ends. However, he has been criticised by some locals for not being public enough during his four-hour visit to Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital, where he met five of the injured still being treated, and to the Cumbrian constabulary’s Workington offices.
Speaking after Workington, Mr Cameron said: “There will be some parts of this that we will never understand. There were some random acts of killings and people who will have lost loved ones will ask why it happened to them and why so random, why it is so unfair and so cruel what’s happened here.”
Some locals complained that he should have visited the murder scenes and met locals who had gathered in Whitehaven.
Tony Jenkinson, told Sky News: "I'm absolutely livid and I'm not just talking for myself. Those taxi lads are over there now, everybody's just livid. This doesn't happen every day. He should have showed the support for us, and not just us, Frizington, Egremont, Seascale, Gosforth."
Another local, Grant Atkinson complained: “He didn’t come to Whitehaven, he went to Workington, where no shootings took place. It’s like going to Texas when 9/11 happened.”