Whitehaven massacre unfolded yards from my home - ex-Chronicle editor (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Former Hampshire editor, Alan Cleaver, describes the scene in Whitehaven

8:30am Thursday 3rd June 2010 in Crime By Warwick Payne

A FORMER Hampshire newspaper editor has spoken of how a shooting rampage in Cumbria unfolded just yards from his front door.

The massacre began just three doors away from the home of former Hampshire Chronicle editor Alan Cleaver.

Now based at the Whitehaven News, he was at the newspaper office when the shots were fired, but was still only 150 yards from the scene.

Speaking from there yesterday, he said: “It all started with reports of a shooting in Duke Street and the call came in from a shopkeeper.

“We didn’t believe it at first because this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Whitehaven.”

He added: “We then learned there was a gunman that was just going around shooting people ‘Hungerford style’ and the police were telling everyone to stay indoors.”

The curfew was lifted after the gunman, Derrick Bird, 52, was found dead around 15 miles from the town.

It is thought taxi-driver Bird took his own life after embarking on a killing spree as he drove through the countryside, opening fire on other victims.

His victims are thought to have included elderly women. Police last night put the number of victims at 12 with around 25 people injured.

Britain’s worst mass shooting since the 1996 Dunblane tragedy began when the divorced father-of-two shot fellow taxi drivers in the town of Whitehaven, killing at least one.

It ended just over three hours later with the discovery of his body in woods near the hamlet of Boot after a frantic manhunt. Officers recovered two weapons.

Three of those injured in the shootings were in a “critical” condition in hospital last night and another five were said to be “serious”.

Mr Cleaver added: “What became clear is that these were probably innocent bystanders and they were chosen at random.

“These were wives and husbands of people, picked at random by a madman, and that makes it a very personal tragedy.

“It’s always something you think will never happen in an idyllic seaside town like this.”

Those who knew Bird said he was a quiet, “normal bloke” with two grown-up sons – one of whom had just become a father – who lived alone near Frizington, Cumbria, and liked tinkering with his car.