Man who carried out Cumbria massacre watched film about shooting rampage the night before, reports say
Catherine Shoard and agencies
The debate over the effect of violent films looks set to be revived after reports emerged that Derrick Bird watched the grisly Steven Seagal film On Deadly Ground hours before embarking on a shooting rampage last Wednesday in which he killed 12 other people and injured 11.
The 1994 film, which Seagal directed and starred in, centres on an environmentalist oil rig worker who, aggrieved after he learns faulty equipment is damaging Alaskan wildlife, goes on a murderous rampage against his co-workers and employees. The film, panned at the time, but now something of a cult favourite, involved multiple scenes of graphic violence involving a range of firearms.
Bird is said to have watched the film at his friend Neil Jacques's house, leaving in the early hours of Wednesday morning after the film ended. The following morning, he drove round Cumbria shooting, before taking his own life.
