"I can confirm that we have found a body in a wooded area of Boot which we believed to be Mr Bird together with a firearm," said Stuart Hyde, Assistant Chief Constable of Cumbria Police.

He said there had been a number of fatalities and injuries but would not confirm numbers until police had spoken to relatives. The BBC reported that 11 people had been shot although it was not known how many had been killed.

TAXI DRIVERS DISPUTE Another taxi driver from Whitehaven, who declined to be named, told Reuters that Bird, who he had known for about 20 years, had shot two other taxi drivers in a dispute. "It came out of the blue. He is a quiet guy," the taxi driver said. Receptionist Helen Owens, 27, working in a lawyers' office about 150 metres down the road from the shooting, said she heard two shots. "We heard a bang and then we saw a police officer running towards where the shooting happened," she told Reuters. "I popped my head out of the door and saw him stop and flag down a passing car and jump into the car with another guy and then we heard another bang." Bird was last seen heading towards the central area of Cumbria, in the heart of the Lake District. The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Seascale said all the site gates had been closed, with staff told to remain at their posts on site while the incident was continuing. However it said its operations were unaffected.

Rod Davies, landlord of Gosforth Hall Inn, said there are unconfirmed reports locally that Bird shot his mother. He rang through this graphic sequence of events with PA:

"The guy flipped for whatever reason. Whether it was pre-meditated, we don't know. We've heard he returned home and shot his mother. Then he has gone on a spree to Seascale, where he's believed to have caused two fatalities. He then left Seascale and went through Gosforth where he's believed to have killed a local farmer, and shot him at point-blank range.

He's then headed to the valley where Boot is." Mr Davies said that shortly after they heard the man had arrived in Boot, police called to inform him it was safe to leave his property. I'm welling up as I knew the local farmer who is believed to be killed."

Home Office figure show that there are 22,476 licensed shotguns in Cumbria with 9,868 shotgun certificates in force on March 31 this year. In the last year 370 new certificates were granted and only two applications refused by the Cumbria police.