Survivors recall Derrick Bird’s Cumbria massacre 15 years on

Fifteen years in the past, taxi driver Derrick Fowl killed 12 folks in a murderous capturing spree throughout Cumbria. Many locals nonetheless refuse to talk of it to today, however some, together with survivors and relations of victims, have shared their tales.

Terry Kennedy had simply picked up his first fare of the day, 19-year-old Emma Percival, to take her for a health care provider’s appointment.

Terry had been mates with Derrick Fowl for years, the pair holidaying collectively in Thailand and fishing within the Lake District once they weren’t chatting on the space’s cab ranks.

“I would by no means seen Derrick have an argument with anyone,” Terry remembers, including: “He was only a quiet type of a bloke.”

On 2 June 2010, with Emma ensconced in his automobile, Terry was heading into Whitehaven when he noticed his pal’s Citroen Picasso approaching.

As 52-year-old Fowl pulled alongside, Terry advised Emma the person they have been about to see was most likely going to make a silly joke or one thing.

Fowl was grinning at Terry, the smile remaining mounted as he raised a shotgun and fired straight at his pal’s face.

Terry was the sixth individual to be shot by Fowl that morning, Emma the seventh as she was struck by a number of shotgun pellets.

“If I hadn’t have gotten my hand up quick sufficient, he would have taken my head proper off,” Terry says.

He raises his arm to show his defensive movement, however as an alternative of his hand there’s now a stump, the limb that saved him needing to be amputated within the aftermath.

Emma is adamant Terry’s hand saved her life as properly, absorbing the brunt of the point-blank blast.

“I used to be coated in glass and blood, my neck was reduce,” she says, including: “I had plenty of flesh and blood throughout me.”

They have been saved from a second shot by Terry’s taxi lurching forwards as his foot slipped from the clutch.

A policeman shortly got here to their support and bought Emma out of the automobile.

They each believed Terry was lifeless.

“I felt actually dangerous for leaving him,” Emma says, including: “The panic had kicked in and I believed it was simply greatest to get out of the state of affairs.”

Miraculously Terry survived and after an extended and painful restoration, he tried to return to work.

“It did not work out”, he says, including he’s nonetheless haunted by what occurred.

“It is nonetheless uncooked, you are reminded of it 100 instances a day.”

He doesn’t imagine Fowl knew he was firing at his pal.

“I believe he was simply in a bloodlust for any taxi driver who had given him a tough time,” Terry says.

Emma’s trauma has additionally been long-lasting, for months she had nightmares about Fowl, however she can also be very grateful to have survived.

“Somebody was watching over me that day as a result of I bought to come back residence to my little boy,” she says.

As Fowl was starting his rampage, Cumbria Police have been discussing price range cuts.

Jerry Graham, the then Assistant Chief Constable and a specialist in firearms administration, was chairing the assembly at its headquarters in Penrith when, shortly after 10:30 BST, a colleague’s telephone rang.

There had been a capturing, they stated, an uncommon occasion even in a rural county with a excessive variety of gun house owners, Jerry remembers.

What adopted was “managed pandemonium”.

Telephones have been ringing, folks have been shouting at one another over laptop screens, a quickly evolving puzzle needing to be instantly pieced collectively.

“I simply thought I’ve to take myself off into an area and attempt to work out what’s occurring right here,” Jerry remembers.

By 11:00 a Gold Command construction was arrange, a group shaped to direct the emergency response.

“By then fairly a couple of folks had been shot and shot lifeless,” Jerry says, including: “Once I was attempting to get sources into the county, [Bird] was making his approach via Cumbria on a capturing spree.”

Fowl had began within the early hours by killing his twin David, capturing him 11 instances in his brother’s farmhouse.

He then murdered his solicitor, Kevin Commons, ready within the lawyer’s driveway for him to begin heading to work earlier than capturing him twice within the head.

No-one can know what was going via Fowl’s head, however an inquest would later hear his violence was pushed by the idea his brother and Mr Commons have been conspiring to have him jailed for tax offences.

He additionally focused fellow taxi drivers, capturing three and killing one, Darren Rewcastle, at a rank in Whitehaven in warped revenge for having been the butt of their jokes and banter.

Cumbria Police’s armed officers have been quickly scrambled, assisted by firearms officers from the close by high safety Sellafield nuclear website, in addition to neighbouring forces.

Police have been determined to cease Fowl.

Some have been ready to launch their automobiles at pace straight into his.

Firearms officers have been in helicopters, in opposition to protocol, within the hope of recognizing him and ceasing his rampage.

“There have been plenty of particular person acts of bravery proven that day,” says now-retired Jerry, tears pooling in his eyes, though he provides there was additionally nice frustration and disappointment Fowl couldn’t be stopped sooner.

“I’ll go to my grave and this might be etched on my mind,” he says, including: “I am going again over it quite a bit and suppose usually in regards to the households.”

In whole, Fowl would kill 12 folks and injure 11 alongside his murderous, 54-mile lengthy drive throughout west Cumbria, earlier than turning the gun on himself in a wooden.

He focused folks at random, firing at them as they walked down streets, rode bikes or drove their automobiles.

One lady was shot lifeless as she carried residence her procuring, a younger farmer was felled immediately in his discipline.

Fowl would gradual and beckon folks over to him, ask the time or instructions earlier than capturing them at level clean vary.

He pulled alongside one parked automobile, calmly asking a girl if she was having a pleasant day earlier than capturing her within the face.

Miraculously she survived.

Pub landlord Harry Berger encountered Fowl as they got here nose to nose both facet of a single-width railway tunnel within the seaside village of Seascale.

He reversed his Land Rover again to let the Picasso go, which is when he first observed the shotgun barrels mentioning of the opposite driver’s window.

“I believed ‘that is a bit bizarre’,” Harry says.

Fowl stopped and wound down his window, prompting Harry to do the identical.

Instantly he had a gun pointed at his face.

“I stated you do not need to try this, its not a great factor to do,” Harry remembers.

After which Fowl fired.

Like Terry earlier within the day, Harry instinctively threw his hand up, two fingers being shot off his proper hand earlier than Fowl drove away.

Medics from the close by surgical procedure ran to Harry’s support, firefighters used a ladder as a makeshift stretcher to take him to a close-by store from the place the Nice North Air Ambulance took him to hospital.

Fowl would find yourself capturing himself simply 400m from Harry’s then-pub, the Woolpack Inn in Eskdale.

Harry is happy Fowl is lifeless, relieved he won’t ever get a telephone name saying his tried assassin and the killer of so many others could possibly be launched from jail.

“My justice is completed, he’s lifeless, he’s rightly not round,” Harry says.

With the help of a strolling stick, Barrie Robinson slowly walks via the previous lychgate into the graveyard of St Peter’s Church in Drigg.

She has come to go to her an identical twin sister Jane, who was 66 when she was the final of Fowl’s victims.

“She was a really energetic cheerful lady like myself,” Barrie remembers, including: “She cherished animals and he or she cherished birds and he or she was fond of kids.”

The sisters have been well-known in Seascale, their massive seafront home having operated as a college the place Jane taught.

Leaving her sister at residence on that fateful June morning, Jane was having fun with her new job in retirement delivering Betterware catalogues.

She was not removed from her entrance door when a taxi driver beckoned her.

“She thought it was someone eager to understand how so she instantly walked over,” Barrie says.

The motive force was Fowl, who killed Jane immediately with two photographs to the top.

Barrie heard the wail of sirens and roar of helicopters overhead however had no concept what had occurred till a neighbour knocked on the door and broke the information.

The person had seen her sister’s physique not distant, left on the roadside.

“I dream about her so much,” Barrie says.

“Then it’s a must to get up and also you out of the blue suppose ‘oh, its again to sq. one, she just isn’t right here’.”

These killed have been:

• David Fowl
• Kevin Commons
• Darren Rewcastle
• Susan Hughes
• Kenneth Fishburn
• Isaac Dixon
• Jennifer Jackson
• James Jackson
• Garry Purdham
• James Clark
• Michael Pike
• Jane Robinson