'You won't see me again,' alleged gunman told friend

Friends and neighbours of Derrick Bird are puzzling over what compelled an outwardly normal man who drank in the local pub and was polite and friendly to those in his community to unleash one of Britain's most deadly killing sprees.

The 52-year-old divorced father with grown-up sons had, according to neighbours, become a grandfather for the first time two weeks ago.

For the past 23 years he has worked as a self-employed taxi driver and he was a well-known and even popular figure on Whitehaven's Duke Street rank - the scene of the first recorded shooting - where he was known as "Birdie" and used to join the other cabbies for a chat and a smoke.

Drivers there said there had been no long-running disputes but that on Tuesday night a row erupted suddenly between Bird and at least one of his victims, a close friend and fellow driver, and he had driven off apparently in a rage.

A friend, Peter Leder, said Bird had told him the previous evening: "You won't see me again" - a statement he thought bizarrely out of character.

In 2007 four men beat Bird and left him unconscious with two broken teeth, when they jumped out of his cab and refused to pay their fare. Bird was said to have become "nervous and anxious". He separated from his partner and childhood sweetheart, Linda Mills, several years ago and was close to his elderly mother. She is being cared for by relatives.

Since the attack he had put on weight and a relative of his former partner said he was "moody" and "didn't have much in the way of self-esteem".

He is thought to have other relatives, including two brothers, living in West Cumbria. Though friends said he had guns - common enough in the rural Lake District - police would not reveal how he came to be in possession of the two weapons used in the killings.

Mr Leder said Bird enjoyed scuba diving, practising in the local pool, and he holidayed abroad each year with friends, recently visiting Thailand, Sweden and Russia. He liked walking and shooting rabbits on the Cumbrian fells around his home. Others described him as a motor enthusiast who followed speedway, liked powerful motorbikes and was regularly seen tinkering with his car engine.

Neighbours at his scruffy mid-terrace pebbledash home where he lived alone in Rowrah, a small village five miles outside Whitehaven, spoke of a man with regular and unthreatening habits.

- INDEPENDENT