THE family of gunman Derrick Bird were last night struggling to understand what turned the quiet taxi driver into a mass killer.

TWELVE people were killed and 11 were wounded when taxi driver Derrick Bird went on a gun rampage.

WHITEHAVEN, Egremont and Gosforth might just as easily have been Quilty, Spanish Point and Mullagh, or maybe Courtown, Ballygarret and Knockbrandon. Or, if the truth be told, any shy, idyllic backwater on this island.

The family of gunman Derrick Bird were tonight struggling to understand what turned the quiet taxi driver into a mass killer.

Derrick Bird was licensed to own the two guns he used to murder 12 people in a three-hour rampage apparently sparked by a family feud, it was revealed today.

British police were today investigating what sparked gunman Derrick Bird's killing spree amid reports he was involved in a bitter family feud.

“YOU won’t see me again,’ Derrick Bird chillingly told a friend before embarking on a shooting spree across rural northwestern England, killing 12 people and wounding 25 others, including his mother, before turning the gun on himself.

DERRICK BIRD’S killing spree began when he shot several colleagues in Whitehaven in Cumbria, then drove his cab through the countryside of the Lake District blasting other victims, apparently at random.