Coroner demands review into health and safety after 999 delay at massacre

Concerns about ambulance staff holding back from casualty scenes have been raised by the coroner who held inquests into the deaths of mass killer Derrick Bird and the 12 people he shot dead.

West Cumbria Coroner David Roberts said there were clear concerns of national importance which came out of the four-week hearing, involving communications between the police and the ambulance service.

Confusion reigned as the 52-year-old taxi driver went on a 45-mile shooting rampage around West Cumbria on 2 June last year, and then turned his rifle on himself.

The police Airwave system nearly collapsed as armed officers were swiftly deployed to hunt down the killer, and there was a lack of communication at strategic level between Cumbria Constabulary and the North West Ambulance Service.

Ambulance crews and paramedics refused to attend shooting scenes until areas were declared safe, as they followed their health and safety protocol, which the police in Cumbria were not even aware of and had not been consulted upon.

After the jury recorded verdicts of suicide for Bird and of unlawful killing for each of his 12 victims, Mr Roberts said: "Clearly, there are issues regarding the question of safe rendezvous points (with police] and whether these are going to be practicable in similar circumstances involving mass fatalities.

"It does not take a leap of imagination to see a situation where, if this incident was replicated, it may be the ambulance service or paramedic assistance would be needed for someone to survive who otherwise would have died."

He told the hearing he would write letters of concern on these issues to the Home Secretary and the Health Secretary.

In the case of the West Cumbria shootings, all 12 victims died almost instantly and none of the 11 injured gunshot victims had immediate life-threatening conditions.

Giving evidence on his independent review into the response on the day by Cumbria Constabulary, the Assistant Chief Constable of West Mercia, Simon Chesterman, said such confusion about the response of ambulance staff "cannot go on".

He said the public should expect the emergency services to put themselves in the way of harm to protect them.

Following the inquests, the director of emergency service for North West Ambulance Service, Derek Cartwright, said: "The role of the ambulance service is to save life, and I stand here proud of every one of the ambulance staff who were involved in this tragedy.

"It is my belief that the ambulance staff fulfilled their duties to the best of their ability, but we accept that, as often happens in cases such as this, there are lessons to be learned, albeit on a national level, and we need to reflect on the helpful comments made during this inquest."

The jury of six women and five men at the Energus centre in Workington took less than 90 minutes to return its verdicts.

Bird shot his twin brother David several times, went on to gun down solicitor Kevin Commons, 60, and then drove to a taxi rank in Whitehaven town centre, where he blasted taxi driver Darren Rewcastle, 43, at point-blank range.

Bird then randomly targeted strangers as he travelled out of town and killed mother-of-two Susan Hughes, 57; retired security worker Kenneth Fishburn, 71; retired Sellafield worker and part-time mole-catcher Isaac Dixon, 65; retired couple James and Jennifer Jackson, 67 and 68; farmer and rugby league player Garry Purdham, 31; estate agent Jamie Clark, 23; retired Sellafield employee Michael Pike, 64; and Jane Robinson, 66. Bird was found shot dead in a wood.

Days before the killings, an increasingly agitated Bird was wrongly convinced that he was going to prison because he owed up to 25,000 in tax.x