Scouse Express

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10219655.stm


Another idiot goes on a shooting spree, in a peaceful English County.

25 more were wounded, 3 critical.

Jim.

helwardman

I used to live in that area so it seems pretty close to home for me.

Reddman

It's a very sad story. Something that you just don't expect to happen in the UK.

kimilseung

The BBC story mentions Dunblane, I had been out of the country (and out of touch) for a long time, when that happened, so it did not make an impact on me. I did not know that it was sixteen 5 and 6 year old who got shot (I may have known at one time) I was not a parent then. I just cant get it out of my head, the frame of mind one would have to be in to shoot 5 year olds.

Lothianlad

Even in the most idyllic and seemingly sleepy and serene of picture postcard places in the British countryside there lurks people who are either mentally or psychologically disturbed in some way, or as seems the case here in west Cumbria around Whitehaven someone who harbours an intense grudge of some kind, nursing and alighty grievance and in whom something snaps, as happened on this gloriously warm sunny day in June.

The wee town of Hungerford, in west Berkshire, surrounded by beautiful countryside close to the picnic sites haven of the Savernake Forest at the edge of the Downs was such a place. So was the small wee Scottish town of Dunblane......a place I know quite well where one of the youngsters in that school classroom that fateful morning was 8 years old Andy Murray, the tennis hopeful who escaped unhurt of course....and now the area around Whitehaven, Seascale, Egremont and Boot...the wee village on the road leading up to Eskdale and the hard to find ruins of the Roman fortress of Hardknott in Western Lakeland.....all three places normally free of any serious crime at all where it's normally just gamekeepers or licensed hunters who carry shotguns.

Ryan, Hamilton and now Bird...all three very disturbed individuals causing mayhem in peaceful rural England and Scotland who also, tragically, were carrying shotguns ostensibly for game shooting.

Now Bird and twelve innocent Cumbrians are dead.

You know what some people have been saying on UK radio phone-ins today?.....something on the lines of:

"It's the sort of thing that happens in America - not England!"

Memories are obviously short as unfortnately that is not true although this sort of tragedy is, indeed, far less likely to occur here than it is in America, thankfully.

chrisfromusa

This kinda thing has been happening in China lately as well, several cases of multiple school children being stabbed to death by madmen. Poor Cumbria, first the massive floods of last year, now this

cindyabs

A frootloop is a frootloop is a frootloop regardless of where they are. I will say the same thing as I've said about the same incidents in the US. If you are so miserable and at the end of your tether, blow yourself away, but leave the innocents alone.

AmerLisa

Well said, Cindy.

SDDep

Its just a pity that those same miserable pricks wont do that...because it would take balls...much easier to shoot innocents than to shoot yourself...frickin pansies...

At least he's rotting in hell with the other murderers...

Poppy girl

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...50#post8606950

scrubbedexpat099

I used to live near Hungerford, some were buried in the village churchyard.

But you are still more likely to be run over by the proverbial bus.

I feel safer here than in the UK, I do not have a gun, but most people would assume I did. Most do.

sime303

I come from near Hungerford too. My mate was up at Savernake Forest having his birthday party the day Ryan started his killing spree in the forest.

Lothianlad

Whitehaven, Cumbria - on a normal day.......you wouldn't think what happened there and close by was possible would you?

It seems that gunman Bird was involved in a dispute with his family over the issue of a will, and two of his victims who died were his twin brother and the solicitor involved in the will wrangle. Other than that everybody locally said he was a "very nice man" who "liked a pint and a laugh down the pub".

It could come straight out of Midsomer Murders on TV....another idyllic typically English rural setting in a village whether nothing ever happens except a murder every other day and twice on Sundays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YofTu-XboI

xxAshleyLxx

According to the news, he is not rotting away and took the cowards way out by turning the gun on himself.

There is now no justice for the families of his innocent victims, they will never know why there loved one's lives were cut short by this lunatic.

I am from Scotland, and i have heard comments saying that our country is becoming more like America each day, but i say that no matter where you currently are, you never truely know the people in your life.

I bet his kids never thought that their Dad would do anything like this. A thought should be spared for them in all this as well. They now have to live with it.

Scouse Express

A dispute over a Will, is what a local victim says started it all. The Gunman shot his twin brother, first.


Jim.