Killer Derrick Bird had 'vengeful fantasies'

A RESENTFUL Derrick Bird was suffering from delusional beliefs that led him to carry out "vengeful, retaliatory fantasies" in shooting 12 people dead, a psychologist said yesterday.

The mass killer, 52, was said to have blamed the rest of society for his failures, but rather than killing himself alone, he chose to cause grief to his community from the "vantage point of his own embitterment".

Dr Adrian West was called in by police days after the shootings in West Cumbria.

The consultant forensic clinical psychologist spoke to 20 of Bird's associates. He found that on the surface Bird was an "ordinary man", described by everyone as passive, but in reality was someone who accumulated grievances and never forgot them.

Dr West was giving evidence at the inquests in Workington into the deaths on 2 June last year.