These were wounds I had never seen before, says dedicated village GP

Dr Barrie Walker, 60, who has been a GP in Seascale for more than 30 years, was gardening when he got a call from his surgery to say someone had been shot.

He rushed into the village and found a man slumped in his car who had been shot in his side.

"Obviously he was in quite severe pain and distress, it was difficult to control to start with.

"General practitioners don't generally come across major gunshot wounds," he said.

After giving him pain relief until an air ambulance arrived, he came across two dead bodies in the street.Both of the victims – Jane Robinson who was delivering catalogues and cyclist Michael Pike – were known to the doctor, and he later had to certify them dead.

"I saw somebody cycling down the hill into Seascale who had just been shot on his bicycle, still sitting on it dead on the pavement, and another lady who had been delivering catalogues in the village for a business which she runs, shot with catalogues in her hand.

"These were severe gunshot wounds to people's heads, faces.

"There was no chance that they would have been alive after the wounds had been inflicted. These were wounds I had never seen before.

"The surreal thing was that life was going on around us. People were driving into the village on business while bodies were lying on the pavement."

Dr Walker later had to certify dead farmer and rugby league player Garry Purdham, and estate agent Jamie Clark, who was gunneddown while driving, causing his car to overturn in the road.

He said: "This just brought back the memories of earlier.

"Three of the four bodies I knew. The families are patients of ours. It brings it home to people."