On the morning of June 2, 2010, twelve people were killed and eleven more were injured at separate places across west Cumbria, a rural coastal district in the north-west of England. The dead came from Lamplugh, Frizington, Whitehaven, Egremont, Wilton, Seascale and the countryside near Gosforth. The man to whom their deaths are attributed was Derrick Bird, a 52-year-old taxi driver from the village of Rowrah, who died by suicide the same day. He was never arrested, charged or tried. The formal legal findings in the case came from the coroner's inquests held at Workington in March 2011, where a jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing for each of the twelve victims and a verdict of suicide for Bird.
There was no prosecution and no court judgment on guilt. The deaths are attributed to Bird by the inquest findings and by the police account of the day, not by any conviction. The inquests were followed by an independent review of the police response, a separate police review of the licensing decisions that had allowed Bird to hold his certificates, an inquiry by a committee of the House of Commons, and, in 2015, a national inspection of the licensing system that cited the same events as a warning.
Bird was 52 when he died. He had a twin brother, David, who was among those killed. He lived in the village of Rowrah, in west Cumbria, and worked as a taxi driver. He had earlier worked at the Sellafield nuclear site and left in 1990 after a conviction for theft.
Police said they found no record of mental health problems or of medication. A former schoolfriend said that on the morning of June 2 he seemed to be in a world of his own. The independent review of the police response later found that the force had not been told of any deterioration in his state of mind and so had no opportunity to act on it.
He had held police certificates since 1995 and 2007. A review commissioned by the Chief Constable and carried out by the national police lead on licensing reported in November 2010 that the decisions to grant these certificates were fully in line with the law, Home Office advice and the guidance of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
At the inquest, a senior officer from Cumbria Constabulary told the hearing that Bird appeared to have developed irrational fears about being sent to prison over tax matters. The inquest heard that he was worried about a tax inquiry into as much as 60,000 pounds of income, some of it undeclared. Those fears, the officer said, were made worse by his belief that his brother David and Kevin Commons were conspiring against him.
His son told the inquest that he had visited his father on June 1 and found him distressed, talking about a meeting with the accountant the next day and expecting to be arrested and sent to prison. He said that his father was not his normal self. A relative told the inquest that in the days before, David had said his brother was going mad and needed to be sectioned.
Newspaper accounts in the first days offered other explanations: a row with his brother over a will, and resentment of drivers he believed took his passengers. Relatives denied any family rift. Police said at the outset that they would examine whether the motive was financial or domestic. No court established a motive.
The Chief Constable described the day to the press in three phases and called it the most tragic and complex incident of his 25-year career. Police said that at no stage did any officer have the chance to end it any sooner.
The public was told to stay indoors, and warnings went to businesses, campsites and tourist sites. The independent reviewer found that many places were deserted as a result and considered it highly likely that lives were saved by this approach. The whole incident lasted about two hours. Bird died by suicide, and the inquest recorded that verdict.
Each of the twelve has a separate verdict in the inquest findings. Relatives and neighbours remembered them in public.
David Bird, 52, of Lamplugh, was Derrick's twin. A neighbour called him the kindest man.
Kevin Commons, 60, of Frizington, was remembered locally as a man committed to the service of the local community.
Darren Rewcastle, 43, of Whitehaven, was described by those who knew him as a loveable rogue with many friends.
Susan Hughes, 57, of Egremont, was a familiar face in the village where she had lived for many years.
Kenneth Fishburn, 71, of Egremont, had lived in the village for many years.
Isaac Dixon, 65, of Egremont, was remembered by a neighbour, who said that he helped everybody and was a gentleman.
James Jackson, 67, and Jennifer Jackson, 68, lived in Wilton. A neighbour said of the pair that there were none better.
Garry Purdham, 31, lived near Gosforth. A relative told the inquest that he was a very nice man who was in the right place at the wrong time.
Jamie Clark, 23, of Seascale, was the youngest of the dead.
Michael Pike, 64, of Seascale, was remembered by his family as a man who loved living there.
Jane Robinson, 66, of Seascale, was remembered by a neighbour as one of the gentlest people in the village.
A police negotiator told the inquest that he had repeatedly telephoned and sent messages to Bird asking him to stop and had received no reply.
The Home Secretary made a statement to the House of Commons on June 3, 2010. She told MPs that Cumbria Constabulary was leading the inquiry from its headquarters at Penrith, with more than 100 detectives, about thirty scenes under examination and more than thirty family liaison officers working with the bereaved. Extra funding was available through the police special grant, local authorities and local charities would be asked what support communities needed, and MPs would debate the issue before the summer recess. She said that it would be wrong to react before the full facts were known.
The Chief Constable asked an assistant chief constable from another force to examine the response. The review, published on March 28, 2011, asked whether the incident could have been prevented and whether police could have stopped Bird sooner. It answered the first question no: the force had no chance to foresee what would happen, and its first opportunity to act came with the first emergency call. It answered the second by finding that police saw Bird only twice during the incident and could not stop him on either occasion. The reviewer could not conclude that any of the weaknesses it found would have changed that.
Those weaknesses were unclear command in the early stages, no armed officers immediately available in west Cumbria because both armed response vehicles were based at Penrith, and a local radio channel that was overwhelmed so that armed officers from neighbouring forces could not use it. The review made 15 observations and 9 recommendations, including on armed deployment policy, intelligence cover on evenings and weekends, the structure of call signs, and the compatibility of police and ambulance procedures. It also recorded individual bravery and dedication to duty. Geography counted for much: the size of the county, its road network and the central mountains.
The inquests were opened and adjourned on June 7, 2010 at Whitehaven by the coroner for north and west Cumbria, in a hearing of about fifteen minutes. The full hearing began on March 1, 2011 in Workington and lasted about four weeks. It covered all thirteen deaths in chronological order and was expected at the outset to hear from as many as 75 witnesses.
On March 25, 2011 the jury of six women and five men returned verdicts of unlawful killing in respect of each of Bird's twelve victims and a verdict of suicide for Bird. They reached the verdicts in under ninety minutes.
The police review of licensing, announced in November 2010, found no reasonable opportunity within the licensing system to prevent what happened and no reasonable change in legislation that would have done so. Its lead officer said the recommendations might not have prevented the events but that wider licensing issues deserved public attention. He proposed formal links between doctors, mental health services and police, an approach to the family of applicants at grant and renewal, applicants paying for any medical report, and a single certificate for both categories.
The Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons published its report on the licensing law in December 2010 with 22 recommendations. The recommendations included codifying and simplifying the law, tighter rules for people with criminal records, notification of family doctors, consultation with domestic partners on applications, and a rejection of compulsory medical checks.
The government's response, published as a Command Paper in September 2011, accepted three of the 22 recommendations and none of them changed the licensing law. It agreed that police would notify family doctors when a certificate was granted or renewed, as police and the British Medical Association had agreed, and it rejected compulsory medical examinations as unlikely to be effective or proportionate. It chose updated guidance in preference to a single codified Act, kept the five-year renewal period, and declined to extend further restrictions on people with shorter custodial sentences.
In September 2015 Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary reported that lessons from the 2010 events in west Cumbria and other cases had not been learned. It described licensing as chaotic, said medical vetting of applicants was weaker than the checks required for bus drivers, and made 18 recommendations to the police and the Home Office, warning that without change there would be another tragedy.
Bird died on June 2, 2010, so the usual route to a verdict on guilt, a trial in the Crown Court, did not exist. The coroner's inquest was the forum in which the evidence was heard. The jury returned its verdicts in respect of the deaths: unlawful killing for the twelve and suicide for Bird. These are findings about how the deaths occurred. They are not convictions, and no sentence followed.
The official position, set out in the 2010 licensing review and the 2011 Command Paper, was that the licensing system had worked as intended and that no reasonable change in the law would have prevented the events. The 2015 inspection took a more critical view of how licensing worked across England and Wales as a whole.
Motive was never established by a court. The inquest heard evidence of Bird's fear of imprisonment over tax and of his belief that his brother and others were plotting against him. Newspaper accounts from June 2010 mentioned a row over a will and resentment among taxi drivers, and his nieces denied any family rift.
Whether there was any basis for his belief in a plot is also unproven. The senior investigating officer described his fears as irrational.
The independent review could not link any weakness in the police response to a faster end to the day.
1990: Leaves his job at Sellafield after a conviction for theft.
1995: Granted the first of two police certificates.
2007: Granted a second police certificate.
June 1, 2010: His son finds him distressed and talking of arrest.
June 2, 2010: Twelve people are killed and eleven injured in west Cumbria. Bird dies by suicide.
June 3, 2010: The Home Secretary makes a statement to the Commons.
June 7, 2010: Inquests opened and adjourned at Whitehaven.
November 2, 2010: The police review of licensing is published.
March 1, 2011: The full inquest begins at Workington.
March 25, 2011: Jury verdicts of unlawful killing for the 12 victims and suicide for Bird.
March 28, 2011: The independent review of the police response is published.
September 2011: Government response to the Home Affairs Committee report.
September 2015: The inspectorate reports on the licensing system.
June 2, 2020: Ten years on; the anniversary is marked in west Cumbria.