Ex-girlfriend tells jury of killer cabbie’s cold ‘emotional void’

The taxi driver, from Rowrah, Cumbria, had also head-butted his girlfriend and she dumped him when Bird showed no support when her sister was dying of cancer.

Bird, 52, who killed himself after his crime spree across west Cumbria left 12 dead on June 2 last year., used a computer at his home every night to access extreme internet pornography.

An inquest jury in Workington heard about Bird’s six-year relationship with Judith Fee.

Ms Fee described Bird as cold and detached. She first met him in the bar at the Washington Central hotel, in Workington, in 1994. Ms Fee, 53, said Bird “seemed a really lovely man” though shy but the couple “just clicked”.

A home care supervisor from Workington, Ms Fee had three children from a previous relationship and Bird, who split from his partner Linda Mills around 1990, had two sons, Graeme and Jamie.

The couple enjoyed days out at the zoo with the children and behaved like a “normal family” but never lived together.

She continued: “Derrick’s father passed away in 1999 but he never really showed how he was feeling and he didn’t cry.

“He kept his grief to himself, but this would be the same during the course of our relationship, he never discussed problems with me, he was a very quiet man who was deep, it was quite difficult to talk to him at times..

However the one issue that “really upset” her was Bird turning his back on her to look at other women. On January 16 1998 it happened again when they were out. “When we returned back to his house we had words, which resulted in Derrick head-butting me in the face,” Ms Fee said.

She said of her sister’s death: “He seemed emotionally void and when I needed him the most, he wasn’t there for me.”

The inquest also heard from Detective Constable Mark Littlejohn, from the High Tech Crime Unit at Cumbria Police. Mr Littlejohn examined the hard drive from Bird’s computer seized from his terraced house in Rowrah.

In a written statement, the officer told the inquest the computer was used solely to access extreme pornography on the internet.

The hearing continues.