UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE
To be published as HC 447 - i ii

House of commons

oral EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

Home Affairs Committee

Firearms Control

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Harry Berger, DR Ian Chrystie, Kevin Moore and Jude Talbot

MR JAMIE REED, Rev Richard Lee and Professor John Ashton

Gill Marshall-Andrews and Dr Mick North

Evidence heard in Public Questions 140 - 199

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Home Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 2 November 2010

Members present:

Keith Vaz (Chair)

Nicola Blackwood

Mr Aidan Burley

Lorraine Fullbrook

Dr Julian Huppert

Steve McCabe

Alun Michael

Mark Reckless

Mr David Winnick

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Harry Berger, shooting victim, Dr Ian Chrystie, father of injured shooting victim Samantha Chrystie, Kevin Moore, brother-in-law of deceased shooting victim Darren Rewcastle, and Jude Talbot, daughter of deceased shooting victim Michael Pike, gave evidence.

Q140 Chair: This is the third evidence session in the Committee’s inquiry into firearms. We have as witnesses today some of the victims of those who were involved in the Cumbrian shootings and the families of some of the deceased.

Can I begin , Ms Talbot, Mr Moore, Mr Chrystie and Mr Berger, by passing on-from every Member of this Committee-our deep condolences at the losses that you have suffered as a result of these terrible shootings and, indeed, our sympathy for all of you who have been injured by what has happened. It must be a terrible experience for you.

Can I begin with you, Mr Moore-and each of you in turn can please speak to the Committee and tell us your views-do you feel that you have had an opportunity to put your side of the events to officialdom as a result of what happened in Cumbria ?

Mr Moore: By coming down here today you mean?

Chair: Generally, since the terrible events of June.

Mr Moore: Yes.

Q141 Chair: Do you feel, Mr Chrystie, that all the authorities dealing with the aftermath have been helpful in providing you with information about precisely what has happened, or would you like to know more about what happened on that particular day?

Dr Chrystie: I think "helpful" is a bit of an understatement. I think the relevant authorities have been more than brilliant.

Q142 Chair: Ms Talbot, can you tell me-perhaps you can start on behalf of all of the others, or any of the others might want to intervene-how you were affected by the shootings that occurred on 2 June?

Ms Talbot: My father was killed and obviously it was very shocking and distressing at the time. I’ve had to come to terms with the death of my father; my children with the loss of their grandfather. I’ve also had to support my mother, and it’s been difficult because not only has my father died but my father was murdered. I’ve had to deal with the emotions and it’s been quite difficult to understand that somebody looked at my father and then shot him dead, and that’s been a difficult thing to explain to my children as well.

Mr Berger: I’m fortunately in a slightly different position. I survived. Yes, I have looked into the eyes of a murderer. My thoughts on it are very simple that, fortunately, we never have to face him in a court of law because I don’t know that there’s necessarily anything legally that could be done to replace what he did, or undo what he did, I should say, and I think the authorities have looked after-certainly, from my point of view as a victim, and I know Dr Chrystie’s daughter in the same way-extremely well, and I don’t think there is anything else that they could do.

I would like to make a point, if I may: I have read the previous two Committee meetings’ worth of notes. I am a firearm and shotgun certificate holder and I regularly-and I would still use the word "regularly"-shoot. I find it very difficult to see how anything else can be done in the application process for shotguns and firearms. Firearms obviously are a slightly more dangerous weapon, in the sense of their distance to kill as opposed to their width of kill. Other than the medical aspects, that I know the Committee have looked at, it’s very difficult to tell. How does one know when somebody is just going to flick the light switch and change from being sane to insane?

Mr Moore: I think the way the firearms is, it’s the amount of ammunition they can get hold of and have in stock, I think, that is worrying as well. Is it 1,500 rounds they can have for a 22, unlimited for a shotgun? I think something needs to be done about that. With myself, if someone wants to have firearms, like a farm or something like that, yes, they can have them at home but anyone else, the public, I think they should be locked away in a gun club or something like that, not so any time they can get hold of them, and then something like this wouldn’t happen again.

Dr Chrystie: I think I accept Mr Berger’s thesis, because I used to have a firearm certificate for a 22 rifle. But it is an undeniable fact that if the late Mr Bird had not had access to firearms he would not have been able to use them. I have also read the deliberations of the Committee and also looked a bit further. I find it interesting that if one takes the close to 1.5 million shotguns they’re on average spread over about two and a half people each. Well, quite a lot have only one. This means that there must be a lot of people who have five or six and so on, which seems odd. The thing that struck me from the previous meeting-I think I’m correct in saying-that your second witness related a tale of a farmer complaining to him about the suggestion that ammunition should be limited, by saying that if he woke up in the morning and wanted to shoot the odd rabbit then he wouldn’t be able to. I don’t feel that wanting to shoot the odd rabbit is a reasonable reason for holding a firearm licence.

Q143 Nicola Blackwood: I would like to join the others on this Committee and say thank you so much for coming today. I know that it has taken a lot of bravery to come and speak out, and we are very grateful for this. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the impact that this event has had, perhaps, on yourselves but also on the wider community, and if that has changed the way you view firearms ownership in this country. I wonder if you’d like to start, Ms Talbot?

Ms Talbot: I can certainly speak about how it has affected myself and my children, and, in particular, my son who’s nine. Previous to this event he enjoyed pretending to be a soldier; playing with guns, and normal playground games. Following this event he has found it very difficult to engage in that kind of play and also has found it hard when his friends do. It’s obviously become very real to him, so it’s changed his perception and he has also packed up quite a lot of his different Xbox games and won’t play them now, those involving violence. So take from that what you will.

The wider community: I don’t live in Cumbria. I live and work in the Slough area in a large special school, and the Cumbria shootings did have a very big impact on my colleagues and the parents of children in my school, in that they did find it shocking and distressing.

Q144 Mr Winnick: Like all my colleagues-and indeed all in the House of Commons-we were so shocked, to say the least, by what occurred and, as the Chair said, all our sympathies go to yourselves and your neighbours.

As far as gun control is concerned, the details we received are that Bird was given authorisation in 1974 for a shotgun. In 1982 he had a conviction for drink driving, which didn’t affect his certificate, and in 1990 there was a conviction for dishonesty, after which the police admit his shotgun certificate should have been reviewed and wasn’t. I’m just wondering-and we would all appreciate your views-do you feel that, in all the circumstances, Bird was the sort of person who should not have been given a certificate, which, years later, was to lead to the terrible tragedy in Whitehaven? Mr Moore, Mr Chrystie, Mr Berger?

Mr Moore: No, because I think he held a shotgun licence from about 1974, didn’t he?

Chair: Yes, since he was 16.

Mr Moore: Since 16, yes. His 22 licence he only had in the last five years, hadn’t he, or something? No, I don’t think there was problem with him holding a gun licence; it’s what he’s done with it though, isn’t it, at the latter end? That’s the problem.

Q145 Mr Winnick: One of the questions that will undoubtedly be of concern to politicians is that, arising from what occurred-and previously of course in Dunblane, and before that another tragedy when legislation was tightened-is there, in your view, any need now to further strengthen controls over the authorisation of people to hold firearms? Mr Berger?

Mr Berger: Yes, I’ve thought about this and, without being either an MP or a celebrity, one of the most public figures you are going to get in a community, however big or small, is going to be your taxi driver. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the guy at all here, but if somebody in as public a position, in the sense of the number of public that meet him, are carried in the back of his taxi, or whatever, if that person is seen to be-there would be reports to the police if anybody suspected that he was either odd or seemed to be dishonest in taking somebody on a roundabout route. I just think that in as public a position as he was, in the sense of a taxi driver, he had to be even more careful about what he was doing to maintain his shotgun and firearm certificates. I agree that if somebody is going to become insane, or has an alcohol problem-as has been seen with a recent shooting in London where there was a history of a medical problem-if you’re not going to take away the licence for that-and bearing in mind that person was married to somebody in some sense of authority-then who’s going to have their licence taken away? Don't get me wrong, I’m not saying take everybody’s licence away. I’m not saying that, but what I am saying is that he was a public figure; "public" with a small "p" I hasten to add. But the police had no reason-other than the past convictions of some time ago, there was no reason to suspect that there was anything wrong more recently than that.

Q146 Mr Winnick: The last question: Mr Berger, however, the Association of Chief Police Officers have sent us a report, which we received earlier today, and it does make the point that in 1990-as I mentioned-Bird had a conviction for dishonesty, and they say-and I’m reading-"should have caused his shotgun certificate to be reviewed", and go on to say, "Given the length of time ago, the file has been weeded out of any record of what occurred." But it does appear that if his shotgun certificate had been reviewed at that time, 20 years ago, arising from the conviction for dishonesty, it’s possible, is it not, that the authorities would have decided that he should not have continued to have a shotgun?

Mr Berger: Shotgun certificates-and forgive my brain, I’m addled with legalised narcotics at the moment-every five years you have to reapply for your licence. So every five years the police have the opportunity-and I believe the report that is probably sitting in front of you that is going to be released today, basically says that there was nothing wrong with the fundamental process, with the way that the Cumbria Police authorised shotgun and firearm certificates. Every five years they have the opportunity to review and if, after a certain number of years, they decide that-I have a drink driving conviction from 20 years ago. I don’t mean to put a nail in my coffin, but I have a shotgun and firearms certificate. It doesn’t mean that I’ve flipped; I’ve gone mad.

Q147 Steve McCabe: I’d also like to thank you for coming today. I know this can’t be easy for you. But if I can just follow on from the point that Mr Berger was raising. Some of the witnesses who legally hold firearms have put it to us that, intense and traumatic though this event has been, events like this are fairly rare, and were we to take action to tighten the law against people who legally use firearms, for sport or whatever purposes, it may be disproportionate, given the rarity of these kind of events. What is your view of that?

Mr Berger: All that is going to happen is you’re going to drive things more underground. Surely, the tighter the controls, the harder it is becoming for the authorities to police it because any member of this room could, I would hazard a guess, within 48 hours-I’m not saying you’re going to try it, but I would guess that within 48 hours somebody, if they really wanted to-really wanted to-could get hold of an illegal firearm. So all you’re potentially going to do by tightening regulation is drive things further underground.

How do you differentiate between the vermin control and the person that just shoots for sport or for any other recreational reason?

Q148 Steve McCabe: Is that a view shared by the rest of you?

Dr Chrystie: That I think is one argument. But I would suggest that if we all in this room suddenly decided that we wanted to take up clay pigeon shooting, most of us could probably currently get a licence. If the licensing conditions were changed, such that most of us couldn’t, we’d probably say, "Oh fine" and take up archery. I don’t think that if you’re prevented from getting a firearms certificate you’re, necessarily, going to go to the more seedy parts of your local big city and find a sawn off shotgun. I wouldn’t even know where to start. I think it would probably take me a year or two rather than 48 hours.

It is a difficult one, in that there are those who enjoy shooting as a sport. I think I’m right in saying that the House had to change the rules somewhat to allow the 2012 Olympics to take place, because a number of the shooting events are illegal-but we’ve managed to sort that out-and that many of those who shoot competitively for this country have to go elsewhere to practise, but they seem to be able to cope with that as well.

Q149 Dr Huppert: I’m interested in understanding a bit more about various aspects of licensing. I’m getting some very interesting messages and thank you very much-as everyone has said-for coming here and sharing your experiences.

We’ve talked a bit about the idea of having too many controls. I’d be interested if you have any comment on the suggestion- which I think Mr Moore made-about limiting ammunition and control of that; about control on the number of shotguns that are available to people, if we could just touch on as well. Also something which I know isn’t relevant in your particular case, which is about airguns and whether you have any thoughts about licensing on all of those. Since we seem to have started on the right quite a number of times, can I perhaps start with Ms Talbot?

Ms Talbot: My opinion is slightly different to the gentlemen. Just as a background, you know I grew up in Cumbria where it’s fairly normal to have a shotgun and to go off shooting in the fields. A good proportion of my friends’ fathers had shotguns in the house and as a child I would see them. They were kept in a safe. Now I don’t think that guns have any place in a residential setting. My opinion is that we should not have guns kept in a dwelling. Although that may be difficult to enforce I see no reason why they can’t be kept in gun clubs. For farmers, I’m sure they would be able to find some outbuilding or there would be another creative way around it. But I don’t think we should be keeping things that kill and maim within a residential area, it’s too big a risk.

Mr Moore: Yes, I agree with what Ms Talbot said. Apart from farmers or vermin control companies, no one else should have guns on the property, I don’t think, or if they have the guns on the property they shouldn’t have the ammunition, either one or the other. Maybe ammunition kept at a police station or something like that.

Dr Chrystie: Yes, I would agree with that. I can see no logical reason, other than sport, why an individual-who is not a professional-needs to own a firearm. If we’re talking about vermin control then perhaps we need to have more people who are trained to use them. I did toy with the idea of suggesting, so I’ll suggest it, I drive a car, which is a lethal weapon. My licence doesn’t give me the right to own the car; it gives me the right to use it because I am supposedly competent and have demonstrated that competence. I don’t know whether a similar suggestion has ever been made with reference to firearms. You asked about airguns. Other than the fact that I dread to think how many airguns there are scattered around the country, yes, I believe they should be licensed.

Mr Berger: I have a completely opposite view to everybody else, for various different reasons. One of the things-certainly from the farming community, and I use "the farming community" as a fairly broad term. I include most of the rural community. Yes okay, slightly controversial, since the House banned hunting with dogs, I saw a fox this morning on my way to the station at 6.30am. There are still lambs around. What do you want to win? I would prefer to eat a lamb than a fox. Sorry, I just have a very different view on this, and you can’t answer it in two minutes. It’s not a two-minute answer. As this Committee understands, this is quite a broad discussion.

Chair: All right. It is a complex issue, Mr Berger. Thank you for that. Mr Chrystie, you had a comment?

Dr Chrystie: I was just going to add a couple of words, which is the urban fox. If we’re going to control the rural fox with a shotgun, are we going to control the urban fox similarly? Probably not.

Q150 Chair: Ms Talbot, I want to ask you a question, based on your own personal experience as a teacher rather than you coming to this Committee as an expert on this issue. I think, you mentioned video games?

Ms Talbot: I did.

Chair: Do you think violent video games have an effect on young people when they may or may not use firearms, and were you aware that there is no minimum age for the possession of a licence for a shotgun for a young person?

Ms Talbot: I was aware about the minimum age; obviously growing up in Cumbria, there were people I went to school with that were joining gun clubs and things like that. Video games, I think it’s an easy out. I think specifically little boys have a need to express themselves in that way. If you don’t let them have toy guns they will use a stick and pretend it’s a gun. I don’t think that video games are the cause of these feelings in children, but I do think they don’t understand what they mean.

Q151 Mr Burley: I was interested in your experience, as a mother, that your children had stopped playing certain Xbox games, presumably violent ones or ones with guns, and I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that. Because we had evidence before the last Committee from some experts who said they felt that these very violent gun dominated video games do normalise a certain behaviour, and do normalise the use of firearms, and that it’s very easy for kids who think that that’s the normal way to go about things to then take that behaviour on to the streets, and so on.

Ms Talbot: Can I request that the press don’t report on my children’s experiences before I say anything?

Chair: Sorry, are you going to give us those experiences now?

Ms Talbot: Well, I can talk about-

Chair: Well, I’m afraid, Ms Talbot, everything that you say is in the public domain.

Ms Talbot: Okay.

Chair: Making a request to the press, although we would love to believe that they would follow our request, is not normally adhered to. Everything that you say-so think carefully before you say anything-is actually-

Ms Talbot: Okay, I won’t talk about that then.

Chair: Okay. Thank you very much. Mr Berger?

Mr Berger: I live in the country now. I was born and brought up in the countryside. I have two older brothers. I learnt to handle a shotgun at a very, very, very early age, far earlier than I learnt to drive. It has been part of my education-my life’s education-in how to handle them. Does that stop me wanting to do that with my children? I have a daughter and a son. No. My son is seven. He will eventually inherit and I will teach him to shoot. When? I don’t know. But it hasn’t put me off wanting to pass on my experience to my children.

Q152 Mr Burley: But do you see a difference between that experience, a very formal, practical father-led tuition of how to handle a firearm, and the unsupervised computer game, ultra violence that your son could equally be playing when you’re not supervising him in a practical sense? Does that worry you more?

Mr Berger: He races cars so he doesn’t-to be fair, we don’t have those games in the house. That’s not because I necessarily don’t want them. I’m not into them, so he’s not into them. It is a classic father/son relationship.

Q153 Mr Burley: You can understand when some experts say that’s almost more dangerous because they’re unsupervised, left to these very violent video games, as opposed to the more paternal practical handling of a shotgun that you would-

Mr Berger: Okay. I don’t want to be drawn on that one. To be honest with you, I’ve never played them, I don’t have any experience of them.

Q154 Nicola Blackwood: There is little doubt that there is a significant culture at the moment that glamorises gun use, whether it is rap music or film industry or video games, and children from all backgrounds have regular access to this. Many do not have practical experience of gun use in a positive way. Do you think that there is a way that we can be better educating that age group about the consequences of gun use, rather than merely about the image of gun use?

Dr Chrystie: It may have been at one of your last meetings, or it may have been something else I read, but I recall, I think it was a teacher who had devised lessons in the use of guns for-I cannot remember what age of children-and her experience was that when presented with imitation firearms they waved them around in exactly the same way as Harry’s children would not because they have been properly trained, but they waved them around in much the same way as they do on video games. Having been through a number of lessons, they then recognised the correct way to use a firearm. I don’t know whether that answers or informs your deliberations in any way and of course the fact that they were then able to use a firearm, rather than not, has its own disadvantages.

Q155 Nicola Blackwood: What would be your view, Ms Talbot, if such events happened in your school?

Ms Talbot: I think it could be covered under the PSHE Citizenship Curriculum. It probably already is in some form. It is a difficult one. It’s do we leave things to parents or does the state try to interfere in parenting? I think it could be covered under the PSHE Curriculum. I think also it’s to do with the wider society and the children’s feelings of citizenship, and even their understanding of what actually happens. At a young age-primary age-they don’t understand what happens because on the video games the people get up again.

Q156 Mark Reckless: We heard from Ms Talbot about guns not being appropriate in a dwelling but then the reference, perhaps from Mr Berger, to guns being perhaps more entrenched in rural communities than urban. Is it practical, do you think, to have a distinction between no guns in dwellings but farmers being allowed to have guns in, say, outbuildings?

Ms Talbot: Well, currently, the police come and check where the guns are kept, so it would be secure. The police would make it so as part of the licensing. I think it’s reasonable to have guns in an outbuilding in a rural community. As I said before, it’s not reasonable to keep them in a house, I don’t think, but in an outbuilding that would be fine.

Q157 Dr Huppert: I was very struck by Dr Chrystie’s analysis in comparison with the idea of car licensing. In both cases you have something which plays a very important role but can also be lethal, leading to many deaths and I think the number of deaths from cars is rather greater than what we’re considering. Is this analysis, and way of thinking about the problem, something you think this Committee should pursue further or is it a red herring?

Dr Chrystie: Are you asking me?

Dr Huppert: Anybody who has thoughts on it. You suggested it, so-

Dr Chrystie: I threw it out. I’m not sure whether it is a red herring or not. It would have, I’m quite certain, the effect of reducing the number of licences and the number of weapons because people would not bother to undertake whatever training was required.

Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Chrystie. Ms Talbot, Mr Moore, Mr Chrystie and Mr Berger, thank you very much for coming. This must have been a very difficult experience for you. Can I reiterate the deep sympathy of the Members of this Committee and our thanks. It’s not easy to get down to London from Cumbria. I know, because I’ve driven up to Cumbria to meet witnesses that are coming before the Committee shortly and it’s a very long way for you. We are extremely grateful, and we hope that we will, in some way, provide you with some of the information that you clearly need in order to know precisely what happened on 2 June. Thank you very much for coming.

Dr Chrystie: May I have a few seconds to thank you, sir, and your Committee for turning what could have been a fairly traumatic experience into-from my point of view, anyway-a very informative and almost enjoyable one.

Chair: Thank you very much. Not many witnesses say that to us I have to tell you.

Dr Chrystie: You were very kind.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Jamie Reed, MP for Copeland, Rev Richard Lee, Team Rector of Egremont, and Professor John Ashton, Joint Director of Public Health, Cumbria Primary Care Trust and Cumbria County Council, gave evidence.

Q158 Chair: Rev Lee, Mr Reed, Professor Ashton, thank you very much for coming today to give evidence to us. Obviously, we all remember the shocking details of 2 June, none more so than the three of you who are very much part of the community there. Mr Reed, of course, we saw you relate to the country the concerns of your constituents; something I think none of us sitting around this Committee room would like to have been in a position to do, and we have heard from some of your constituents here today.

Are you confident, Mr Reed, that the inquiries that are currently ongoing will get to the bottom of what has happened? Because today-I don’t know whether you have seen a copy of the report produced by ACPO, but they have sent all Members of this Committee a very detailed report and they’re giving evidence next week with the Chief Constable of Cumbria. But are you satisfied that what is on offer at the moment will give yourself, and your constituents, full satisfaction around the events of 2 June?

Mr Reed: First of all, Mr Vaz, thank you very much to the whole Committee for establishing this hearing and all of the hearings associated with it. I think it has given this issue a momentum and an analysis, which it otherwise wouldn’t have had from any other source within Parliament as of yet, so I’m very grateful for that. I’ve seen the ACPO Report. I’ve read it. It needs closer inspection from me. I think we have to-as a society and certainly as a Parliament, as a legislature-compare that ACPO Report, which I think is a very good report, with the existing firearms legislation. That’s a job for Parliament to do, and until we do that I personally won’t have the satisfaction I would like. I can’t speak for my constituents because I think, as you’ve seen, there is a range of views. So, as good as the ACPO Report is-and I think it is good-it’s a very detailed starting point for the time being, from my point of view.

Q159 Chair: Rev Lee, you may not have seen the ACPO Report, but one of the facts that surprised me is that 10% of those who have firearms have criminal convictions of some kind, and that Derek Bird had his firearm from the age of 16 or 17, despite being known to the police. You know the local community. Would that have come as a surprise to people in the local community in Cumbria?

Rev Lee: I think some of the folk, who live within the urban concentrations, wouldn’t be so much aware that the folk who lived on the edge of the farming industry would be so involved with firearms, but they probably wouldn’t realise how involved youngsters would be from a very early age with other dangerous pieces of farming equipment: the thresher, the plough, the tractor. If you look at the number of industrial injuries we have on farmland with farming procedures, it falls into that sort of context. So I don’t think they’d be particularly shocked and many of them know; you can’t live on the edge of the farming communities without hearing shotgun fire.

However, that shotgun fire now-for certain individuals-is deeply distressing because the sound of that weapon going off doesn’t remind them of a country pursuit, it reminds them of a lethal and a most aggressive attack upon themselves and their communities. So, I don’t think they’d be particularly amazed. There may be people who just don’t know. But certainly, having spent many years in the Royal Air Force watching how carefully we train young men and young women to use weapons all the way through their lives, I’d be rather uneasy myself to leave someone at the age of 16 with an experience of breaking open a shotgun and firing it and saying that’s the level of training they can abide with for the rest of their lives. I think there’s a question mark there.

Q160 Lorraine Fullbrook: Thank you, Chairman. I’d like to address my question to both Rev Lee and to Mr Reed individually. Following on, Rev Lee, from what you have just said: can you describe to the Committee the impact the shootings have had on the local community?

Rev Lee: Well, it would be outrageous of me, in a sense, to try and sum that up in a few moments. All I can say is that there is an abiding sense of-it’s not quite fear, but it’s an abiding sense of someone took away my innocence; someone took away my village; someone took away my street; someone took away my liberty, and they killed someone outside my front door," and one feels offended by that and very unsettled indeed. Even the passage of time doesn’t help because for various reasons people do revisit their grief, revisit their pain, and there are certain folk, without going into any detail, who will not go past a point easily. They will not pass that site on the bridge, that site on Grove Road, where someone lay or was murdered. So the effect on the community, I look upon it as if you take an enormous stone block and you hit it with a chisel at a certain angle; fault lines will fracture throughout, and you never quite know where they are until you just try to move the block.

That’s what is happening to people. There is a transition time in which they think they’re coming to terms with it, then something is said or something happens; such as All Saints Tide, All Souls Tide. As you know, many churches have services where they recall the names of those who have died over the last year; that can be a pivotal point. Christmas, another point when they realise that there is a space at the table that was never there before. So I think the effects are multi-lateral and dictated by how people were at the time when things happened. Because some families found it more deep-seated, hurtful, then and now they’re just coming to terms with it and realising the man was a person who not only died but was murdered, and that brings out a certain element of anger, frustration. One of the words that people have said to me, they’ve just felt a bit at times-although I would like also to pay tribute to the work of the Family Liaison Officers, who have been superb, and many other agencies have stepped into breaches. But there was a certain sense on the day of abandonment; abandonment to violence, all the authorities that should stop this happening didn’t. It continued. Whether we like it or not, it flowed. All of the support systems-

Q161 Chair: Can I stop you there: who should have stopped this?

Rev Lee: We don’t know. That’s an inarticulate response about folk just saying, "The death of one person, two people, three people, four people, five people", and it goes on.

Q162 Lorraine Fullbrook: I would like to ask the same question to Mr Reed, if you could describe what you feel about the impact of the shootings on the local community?

Mr Reed: It’s been profound. I have to say I’m very grateful that our community had Rev Lee within it because the stoicism and the compassion, and the remarkable way within which he has led so much of the community on these issues has been truly remarkable, and we’re all grateful for that. The community is a community like many-

Chair: Sorry, Mr Reed, I know you should be used to these settings but some of our Members can’t hear you. Could you speak up a little louder? Thank you.

Mr Reed: Sorry. Apologies. The community is a rural community with a long mining heritage, so it’s used to large scale tragedies. Things like this are unique and they do have a large community-wide psychological effect-there’s absolutely no doubt about that at all-particularly upon children, I think. The effect upon the families affected is obvious but different for every family. I think what compounded the effect, what almost accelerated and deepened the effect of the events was the frankly gratuitous, shocking, unjustifiable, invasive media coverage that surrounded much of it, which has left very, very deep scars.

I’m not in a position to say more than any other member of the community how it has affected the community, other than my experience is it has been deep and it has been profound and it will take a while to recover from, but we will recover.

Q163 Lorraine Fullbrook: Can I just pick up the point about the media. Can you explain specifically what you mean about that? Was it an intrusion or did you feel it was badly reported or wrongly reported?

Mr Reed: All of those. I think one of the issues this debate throws up-and it’s a legitimate debate for all of us-is what kind of country are we and what kind of country do we want to be? Do we want to be the kind of country where the son of a murder victim, on his first day back at school, is being hounded by the press? What kind of country is that? What kind of legislature allows that? What kind of people are we that we allow those things to go by and not raise a hand or an eyebrow about whether or not that’s right or wrong? And it’s fundamentally wrong. What happened in the midst of this tragedy was that news reporting and news reportage, very, very quickly, within a matter of hours, became entertainment. That can’t be right and that must be addressed.

Q164 Lorraine Fullbrook: So did you feel that there was nothing positive that the media could do for you in this instance?

Mr Reed: In these instances the media has a crucial role, in the first instance, in disseminating information-a hugely important public protection role in many ways. When the incident is over-this incident was done in little over an hour-the role of the media changes and, of course, it’s right and proper that it should be reported upon. Is it right and proper that people should be offered money to sell stories when, as we know, once we develop a marketplace for this kind of commodity stories are invented with no regard for the people affected by what’s printed or broadcast?

I’ve spent time in the House speaking about these issues. I could speak much longer about them.

Q165 Mr Burley: Clearly one of the results of this terrible incident is some kind of call for tighter government controls, and we’re obviously all trying to tease out what that might mean in practical terms. We saw a split on the representatives of the community this morning between three that favoured some kind of tighter control, in terms of bullets or the way guns were kept; one who owned a licence who didn’t. I was just wondering is that reflective of the wider community? Is there a difference of opinion locally as to what tighter gun controls might mean?

Professor Ashton: Can I make an offering at this stage? I should just say, to situate my position, I’m the Director of Public Health in Cumbria, and my areas of interest and expertise involve the fact that, as a Director of Public Health, I was responsible for the health service side of things, albeit I was at a WHO meeting on injury and violence prevention, which is a longstanding interest of mine. I wanted to refer to that because I’m familiar with quite a lot of the evidence base for prevention, and I’ve been chairing the group that took over from the Chief Constable’s Gold Command, the recovery group, since I’m dealing with the psychological side at a community level and I have a psychiatric training as well as a public health training. So that’s my context there.

But I would like to draw your attention to two or three things in terms of the evidence base. One is that a proportion of violence is preventable, and people tend to be nihilistic about this, but a proportion of it is preventable. And the evidence base, I’ll leave with you the WHO documentation on this-

Q166 Chair: It would be very helpful to the Committee if you would apply all that to the circumstances of Cumbria and tell us what was preventable.

Professor Ashton: Yes. Well, what is preventable-

Chair: In your view-you come here as an expert and you’ve been very helpful so far-what could have been prevented?

Professor Ashton: I think you have to distinguish between the specific events and violence prevention more generally, out of which this event will have grown. I think that’s the problem for people, conceptually, to get their heads around. I think the role of the media is terribly important in these events. One of the colleagues that I was with when this happened has headed up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: injury and violence prevention centre in America, for the last 10 years. I discussed it with him extensively and he has extensive experience of all the mass shootings in America. So we were able to draw on some of that knowledge and insight and feed it into Cumbria from a distance. The point I want to make, which builds on Jamie Reed’s point, is that I don’t think this event would have happened if there hadn’t been the mass media sensationalist coverage of the-

Chair: That is post, isn’t it?

Professor Ashton: -of the Columbine shootings and these other things.

Chair: I see.

Professor Ashton: This is the context, and the media coverage of this event will have sown the seeds for another event somewhere else in the world, because of the global satellite coverage and the sensationalisation of it. That’s a big strand of this that needs to be addressed bearing in mind that, within a few weeks, there was another similar kind of thing in Northumberland. So, it’s now the failure of people to be able to distinguish between reality television and 24 hour news coverage and intrusive sensationalism, and descending on Cumbria as if it was a war zone with the anchor people from the main shows-

Q167 Chair: What is the way around it? It’s a fascinating explanation.

Professor Ashton: I think there needs to be a code of practice, basically. I think there needs to be a code of practice.

Chair: For whom? The media?

Professor Ashton: Yes, for the media. When these major things happen I think there needs to be a code of practice.

Another major thing where I think there is a possibility to learn lessons and do something, I think access to method is terribly important, for injury and violence. And remember guns are involved in accidents and suicide, as well as homicide, and the availability of guns in households, we’ve heard-

Chair: We have further questions on this, which I hope you’ll find of interest.

Q168 Mark Reckless: Professor Ashton, I just wanted to question you about the issue of GP notification. We had, I think, the IPCC recommending that there should be a check with a GP, which, on my understanding, was to give the GP the opportunity to notify anything that hadn’t been disclosed that should have been. Since then there seems to have been an agreement between ACPO and BMA, which, at least to my mind, seems to go further than that and seems to be a tagging of an individual record for the GP to proactively raise material, either then or if it develops at a future date. What are your thoughts about that procedure?

Professor Ashton: Well, my thoughts are informed also by conversation with one of our other medical directors in the Primary Care Trust, who was a GP in West Cumbria and has extensive experience of this issue in the past, and what we between us have concluded on that is that a lot of GPs are very unhappy about being in a position of having to sign off this licence procedure, when they’ve had no training for it and where they feel that they are potentially at risk because they’re not trained in risk assessment. So there’s a lot of insecurity and unhappiness about that.

What we think is that there should be a limited number of GPs who have specialist expertise and that people should not be signing off their own patients, because it can be very difficult to refuse your own patient. I think that’s the sort of thing that needs to be looked at.

Q169 Mark Reckless: Are the GPs more concerned that they may be going a bit too close to disclosing confidential information, or they may be missing something and not understanding the type of medical issue that could lead to a problem with a gun?

Professor Ashton: I think these issues of sharing clinical information have been worked through in recent years. I’ve had to work closely with the police myself on confidential information from the health service, and so on, and I think there’s a more sophisticated approach to that now. I think there’s recognition that if there is a danger to the public, then there’s a requirement of disclosure under certain circumstances. But I think if the signing off GP is not the patient’s GP and can access clinical records, then that takes some of the problematic side of this out.

I was going to say, there was no evidence that Bird had psychiatric problems.

Q170 Chair: But he did have criminal convictions?

Professor Ashton: Yes, and that’s another issue. But what I’m saying is that what we’ve heard this morning so far is quite anecdotal, notwithstanding the importance of the testimony. But the evidence base for risk assessment is not in place. There is some of it here in this global review.

Chair: It would be extremely helpful if you could apply that excellent document there to the facts of this case and let us have a note.

Q171 Alun Michael: I’m convinced of the value of taking a public health approach, and you may be aware we had evidence, only last week, from Professor Jonathan Shepherd about the approach to violence in Cardiff.

Professor Ashton: Yes. I know Jonathan Shepherd.

Alun Michael: Can we approach it from the other side then and ask the question: how could we use a public health perspective to look at the system of gun controls in this country, and are there any changes that you would recommend in the way that we deal with that issue?

Professor Ashton: I think that I would come back to access to method; with violence and injury it’s access to method and the method in this case is guns and ammunition. There is evidence of other countries having different approaches and having had an impact on levels of gun violence by having different thresholds of age, for example, and other methods.

Q172 Alun Michael: Forgive me, with all that knowledge and background, are there recommendations you would make for the way that we might change the way we control guns in this country?

Professor Ashton: The single, practical thing I would say is that the medical certification side should be reframed, in the way that I just mentioned earlier.

Q173 Dr Huppert: Have you had a chance to look at the ACPO Report through today?

Professor Ashton: No.

Dr Huppert: I’d be very interested in your responses-although you haven’t read it, and I’m sure you will. The things which I thought were interesting were, firstly, a comment that: "The details of these circumstances do not give rise to any immediately obvious changes that need to be made, either in the Cumbria constabulary or in law, such as would have readily prevented the offences from being committed". It then goes on to say that there are a number of changes that are considered would improve public safety more widely in this area, but they’re not directly related to these events. Those involve formal data links-as we’ve just been discussing-with the GP, mental health and police services, inquiry of the applicant’s GP, funded by the applicant, talking to the applicant’s family at grant and renewal, and having a single type of certificate for both firearms and shotguns.

Do you have any thoughts about whether that is what you expected to hear from ACPO, what you thought would be helpful? How much notice should we take of this?

Chair: If we have a brief response from each one of you that would be helpful.

Mr Reed: I think we should take significant notice of it. I do think it’s a starting point. I don’t think it’s an exhaustive detailed end point. Could the killer have killed as many people, in the time that he killed them, with one weapon and less ammunition? That question isn’t answered. There are significant questions raised by the report still, which I think need to be answered by a question from this Committee.

Chair : Indeed. Rev Lee, you haven’t seen it?

Rev Lee: No.

Chair: So it’s difficult for you. Professor, have you seen it?

Professor Ashton: I haven’t seen it, no.

Q174 Chair: We’re very grateful to ACPO, it’s just that they published it on the day you’re giving evidence, so you’ve not had an opportunity to see it. But we will have the Chief Constable in, and it would be very helpful if you could read that report and let the Committee know your views, so we can put some of these views to ACPO and the Chief Constable when he comes in.

I have a final question for you, Rev Lee. When I was up there in Cumbria you were debating the kind of memorial that you wanted for those who had died and been injured; have you all decided what kind of memorial you want?

Rev Lee: Copeland is a very diverse area and they have not, and what is appropriate in one part of the borough is not appropriate in another. In a very small village where there were two murders, they want very little to be seen on their streets because it become dominant and domineering, whereas there are moves now towards thinking of perhaps some form of distinct memorial in a place-what we are going to do, I think what is happening, is that when the anniversary of this event comes around it wants to be remembered with positivity, giving thanks for the lives of those people who lived, not remembering how they died. So I think there’s a great move in the whole community to do something to lift people’s morale at that time. So that’s what’s happening. On further details, I’m unsighted, but could I just say a couple of things?

Chair: Very briefly.

Rev Lee: I would like to say that when I dealt with the press I found them not rude or intrusive, as long as I was straightforward and to the point, and they backed off very quickly. Also, I would like to pay tribute to all those people who stepped in as volunteers to help people on the day; extremely bravely. Copeland being so isolated, the ambulance service was just impossible but there were some very brave individuals who have now gone back into the twilight and I think they’ve done amazingly well and I pay tribute to them indeed.

Chair: Yes, Mr Reed, very quickly.

Mr Reed: One final point, Mr Vaz. As a parent, there are tighter controls on the number of bottles of Calpol I can buy at any one time in the supermarket than there are on the rounds of ammunition I can buy as the owner of a 22 rifle. That cannot be right.

Chair: Indeed. What would be extremely helpful: we are looking to the future, obviously, to try and prevent this kind of thing happening again. If you have any suggestions of ways in which the Committee can do this, we would very much appreciate your comments. We hope to have our report, subject to the progress of Committee business, by Christmas of this year, and we hope it is a report that is worthy of the people who lost their lives. Thank you very much for coming today.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Gill Marshall-Andrews, Gun Control Network, and Dr Mick North, Gun Control Network, gave evidence.

Q175 Chair: Ms Marshall-Andrews, and Dr North, thank you so much for coming to give evidence to us today. You’ve heard some of the testimony that we have received so far. But can I start with you, Ms Marshall-Andrews? You argue that a significant proportion-a significant proportion-of gun offences are committed by those with legal weapons. What is the basis of that assertion?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: There are two different kinds of legal weapons: there are those that are licensed and there are those that are held because a licence is not necessary. First of all taking the licensed weapons, almost all of the mass shootings around the world-including the three that we’ve had here since 1987-have all involved licensed gun owners and licensed guns. In this country we don’t collect figures for licensed guns that are involved in crime. We can’t get hold of that information; freedom of information requests are routinely rejected. But looking to another country, Canada, a third of all traced murder weapons are licensed. So it is clearly not the case that licensed weapons are not part of the problem. They are part of the problem.

Chair: Dr North, would you like to comment?

Dr North: Of course, I agree with what Gill has said.

Q176 Mr Winnick: Ms Marshall-Andrews, you argue in your organisation that the bar should be raised so only those who meet the strictest criteria should be allowed to have guns. Do you think that that is feasible, bearing in mind the need for people in the agric ultural community, as they constantly tell us , to have weapons?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: I do. I think that the starting point should be that guns are lethal weapons and the onus should be on the applicant, somebody who wants to own a gun, to prove that they are okay to have a gun. It shouldn’t be that the police have to demonstrate why somebody should not have a gun; it should be the onus on the applicant to say, "I’m an okay person to hold this gun in every respect, and I can prove that every two years". We suggest renewals every two years.

I think that the essence of licensing should be that a gun licence is a privilege and not a right. If you start from that point, then you can raise the bar and say, "We are only going to have very particular people that we are going to allow to own a gun for a particular purpose".

Q177 Mr Winnick: Can I put this to you-if you like as the Devil’s advocate-the gun lobby, if that’s the right description, would say, "You can virtually ban all firearms but it won’t alter the fact that those who are determined to commit mass murder would do so by using illegal weapons and, therefore, the tragedies that we know about and that your organisation came into being as a result of-I think of Dunblane and now Whitehaven-will occur all the same." What do you say to that?

Dr North: As someone who lost a daughter at Dunblane, I’m well aware of the damage that licensed weapons can do. I also sat through the Cullen Inquiry at the time, and Lord Cullen made comments in his report to the effect that the Dunblane massacre was planned in the context of Thomas Hamilton owning the weapons that he did. He did not consider it likely that he would have been able to commit that atrocity in any other way. Neither do I feel that there is any evidence that Thomas Hamilton, nor Derek Bird, would have been able to get hold of weapons illegally. They did it in the context of holding their weapons legally.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: That is borne out by the fact that almost all mass shootings are committed with legal weapons.

Mr Winnick: As were the three tragedies, which I mentioned.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Yes.

Q178 Steve McCabe: Am I right in thinking you’ve found some common ground with representatives of the shooting lobby who also argue for a single licensing system for shotguns? Is there much difference between what you’re proposing and what they’re saying?

Dr North: I think it’s news to us that we have common ground on something, which is encouraging. Certainly we had for a long time advocated a single system, not only to include shotguns and Section 1 firearms but also air weapons as well.

Steve McCabe: I think air weapons-

Dr North: I suspect that the gun lobby would differ with us on that.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: I think-

Steve McCabe: And just tell me-sorry.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Just one thing: I think that would depend upon whether there is a common system, a common licensing system that seems to coalesce around the shotgun procedure, as opposed to the Section 1 procedure, which is much more demanding.

Q179 Steve McCabe: Okay, yes, that’s fair enough. Tell me, what is the benefit you expect to achieve with a shorter renewal period for licences?

Dr North: We’ve seen a number of instances over the years of people whose behaviour has changed over a short time period. In five years a lot of things can change. I have had a look to see what other countries do. New South Wales, as far as I can tell, does ask for renewal every two years. So it’s not unusual. Of course, it was a shorter time period in this country as well until comparatively recently.

Q180 Steve McCabe: Just so I am clear on this, is the two-year figure based on what you’ve seen elsewhere rather than the fact that there’s any obvious immediate benefit from that period of time?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: It’s a compromise because it’s expensive-it’s labour- intensive-but it would be a reasonable period in our view.

Q181 Lorraine Fullbrook: Thank you, Chairman. I would just like to pick up something that Gill Marshall-Andrews has just said. You said all mass shootings were with legal weapons. The staff of the Committee requested an up-to-date figure of the use from the Home Office and received the following responses, "In 2008-09 there were 39 shooting homicides. Four of these deaths involved a weapon that was held on a firearm or shotgun certificate." So that is contrary to your evidence a minute ago.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: No, no, we’re talking about mass shootings. That is the Hungerford, Dunblane, Cumbria here, plus the international ones from Australia, France, Germany, Finland. This is a sort of syndrome of the mass shooter, the loner who loves his guns, who goes berserk and kills a lot of people. What you’re talking about, these are individual murders. You have managed to get information that we haven’t managed to get, if you’ve had that from the police. We are always asking, in the case of a serious gun crime, "Was this a legally held weapon?" and we are never given that information.

Q182 Lorraine Fullbrook: It is clear that the figures will change because of the Cumbrian shootings, for example, but 17 of those 39 shooting homicides involved a weapon where a certificate was not held.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Right. Well, you know more than we do, but in terms of the broader figures, if you look at the figures for slight injury in the UK it’s-sorry, I haven’t got them.

Dr North: 67% involved imitation guns and airguns, which don’t need any licence at all.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: 20% of all serious gun injuries in this country are committed with airguns. So if you want to do something about gun crime you do need to think about airguns.

Q183 Chair: And you have put that in your written evidence to the Committee?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Yes.

Dr North: Yes.

Chair: Excellent.

Q184 Nicola Blackwood: Just to follow up on that airgun point slightly, there are an estimated 7 million airguns currently out there unlicensed. If you want to start addressing that, how would you go about it? You can obviously license people who can buy new ones, but what about the 7 million that are already out there? Aren’t they responsible for the majority-

Ms Marshall-Andrews: We have been talking to the police about that and what we’ve suggested is that the new airgun, as you suggest, is brought into a new system of licensing. And that over a period of, say, two years, you allow an amnesty where people can hand in their airguns or license them. After that period it would be an offence to be holding an airgun after a licence. So you have to phase it in. We recognise that it’s a very big problem and that it would have to be phased in, but it is done. You know, Australia licenses airguns. A number of other countries are moving towards that. New Zealand is very, very concerned about the high powered airguns now, and the growth in airgun crime.

Q185 Nicola Blackwood: We have received mixed evidence on exactly how GPs and the medical profession can help ensure that only those who are appropriate to be holding licences should retain them. The main difficulties seem to centre around data protection issues, but also around the ability of individual GPs to actually make an assessment of deteriorational behaviours which may occur outside their time with the patient. How exactly do you think we can get around those problems?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: I think that you have to establish a very clear protocol for GPs. I have two GPs in my family, my daughter and my daughter-in-law, and I’ve talked about this extensively with them. GPs are frightened of losing the good will of their patients, obviously. So it has to be taken, in a sense, out of their hands. There has to be a clear protocol which says-for instance it might say, "If you are prescribing this drug for somebody" or, "This kind of level of drug for somebody", then that should trigger some sort of notification as a matter of course. So it is taken out of the individual hands of the GP, who doesn’t have to make a proactive decision to say, "I don’t think this person really should have a gun; I’m going to tell the police about that". That won’t work, I don’t think. But if it is done as part of a protocol, which takes it out of the hands of the GP-

Chair: Thank you.

Q186 Nicola Blackwood: Sorry, could I just interrupt?

Chair: Yes, of course.

Nicola Blackwood: The slight problem I see with this is it is predicated on the principle that people regularly see their GPs. In order to assess a change of behaviour you would need to see a pattern over time, and I haven’t seen my GP for at least two years. So I just wonder how you address that.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: I think the change of behaviour is probably not a change; I think it’s probably got to be much more about, "This person is depressed and, therefore, should not be owning a gun". I think that to ask a GP to assess somebody’s changed behaviour is probably not viable.

Q187 Mark Reckless: Ms Marshall-Andrews, in your final recommendation in your memorandum to this Committee, you recommend notification to present and indeed former, up to two years, partners.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Yes.

Mark Reckless: Could you tell us a little more about how that would work in practice in light of the Australian and Canadian experiences you cited?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Yes. Do you think-

Dr North: On the application form for anyone applying for a firearms licence, there is room for a current spouse or an ex-spouse of up to two years to complete and sign, and if they fail to do so then that triggers an additional level of investigation by the registering authorities.

Q188 Mark Reckless: To a spouse or ex-spouse?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Or a partner.

Dr North: Or a partner. I think it is "consummal" or something are the words that are used on the actual application form. But it is up to the applicant to declare their partners for that past two years, and get each one of them to sign the form. If they don’t then an additional investigation-it doesn’t veto the application but it ensures that additional investigations take place.

Q189 Mark Reckless: Are we reliant on the applicant to give the information as to who those individuals are?

Dr North: I assume so, yes. I don’t know the details beyond looking at the application form itself.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: In Canada, where they brought this in in 1995, in the ensuing eight years the gun murder rate of women went down by 40%. In New Zealand, where there is also what they call a "spousal hotline" that is-

Dr North: That’s in Canada that, sorry. The hotline is in Canada.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: No, it’s also in New Zealand there’s a spousal hotline.

Chair: It would be very good if you could let us have a note about that.

Q190 Lorraine Fullbrook: I would just like to ask about the recommendations of changes to gun controls from the Gun Control Network, your organisation, specifically about lifting the secrecy about gun ownership and making it available to members of the public, so they can find out who actually has a licence, and a hotline for those who wish to record their concerns about a gun owner, and where it is appropriate they should prompt a review. Don’t you think this information is making it easier for the criminal fraternity to know, without a bit of digging, who has guns and where they need to go and find them and therefore, would increase robberies and, therefore, theft of legal guns, legally held by responsible owners?

Dr North: I think there’s a lot of evidence that the criminal fraternity know already. We had an article from the Northern Echo this morning, a police warning to gun owners after two break-ins at farms in that area.

Lorraine Fullbrook: That’s my point.

Dr North: Well, there’s no public information that there were guns there, but they would have known-and a warning from the Metropolitan Police about shotgun thefts in London last year. These things are happening now. Breaking the secrecy has nothing to do with letting the criminals know, and neither is it going to be information that is available for the general public. It is so it can be checked by those who might be at risk in going into a house where there is a weapon.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Could I just add one thing about openness? That is that there is a culture of secrecy here and there is collusion between the police and the gun owners to keep it all very quiet. It is our belief that if it is exposed to the light, first of all there will be fewer gun owners; secondly, they will be much more careful about their guns and how they store them, and it will provide communities with a clear route to register their concerns about inappropriate people that they think might be holding guns.

Q191 Mr Burley: Just following on this argument, I am not sure I follow your logic, because at the moment you obviously have criminals who probably take a punt that certain types of households may have a gun in them, a farmer or so on, and as you heard from the Northern Echo there, they are obviously targeting certain houses where there is a probability. Under your proposal you are going to make that even easier because the information is going to be made available, and it says here one of your suggestions is that members of the public can find out who has a licence. So isn’t that just going to lead to-

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Certain members of the public. We are not suggesting-

Q192 Mr Burley: My point is that if it is more open you are going to have more criminals targeting more premises where there are known guns to steal.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: That is clearly an argument. Our view is that where a criminal clearly wants to go after guns they will know where they are anyway. The criminals already know where the guns are. We have a lot of evidence from the police that says that there is an increase in burglary and the theft of legal weapons. There is an increase, which implies that people know where they are already and that they are not being cared for properly. They’re not being stored properly. So what we have to try and do is to open it up so people know where they are and the guns are kept very, very tightly stored.

Chair: I think you have made that point very clearly, Ms Marshall-Andrews.

Q193 Mr Burley: I have a question on the GP issue, because we had some evidence last week saying that if someone was depressed that in itself would not be a reason for revoking their licence, or not issuing one to them. I’m just wondering from your conversations with your family and other GPs what sort of conditions would prompt a GP to say, "Right, we should revoke that person’s firearm licence". I am thinking, for example, if they were neurotic, if they were depressed, if they were drinking alcohol to excess. All of those things?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: It can’t be left to the GP to revoke the licence. That’s not what this is about. This is about the GP having the information on a record that somebody has a gun licence, and with a proper clear protocol that says to them, "I am prescribing something for this person who is depressed, therefore, maybe I should call the police and let them know". If it’s to work it’s going to be very prescribed how the doctors have to behave and not in their-it’s not going to be a matter of, "Should I? Shouldn’t I?" It’s going to have to be prescribed, a bit like doctors at the moment have to record gunshot injuries in hospital.

Q194 Mr Burley: Just in practical terms then: someone loses his wife, he goes to his GP, as Nicola said, who maybe he hasn’t seen for a year, two years. He’s put on some mild antidepressants. That GP under your system would then have to notify the police that they have-

Ms Marshall-Andrews: It depends on what the protocol said.

Q195 Mr Burley: Okay, is that what you’re suggesting the protocol says? Because that would be a mental health issue.

Ms Marshall-Andrews: I don’t want to define the protocol, but I-

Q196 Mr Burley: Well who does?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Well, that’s for the doctors to do. But there needs to be something which is very clear which says, "If you pass this threshold, if this happens to a patient I’m going to tell them this".

Q197 Nicola Blackwood: On this point of making it possible for certain professionals and members of the public to find out, what kind of professionals and members of the public do you mean?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: We get a lot of paramedics who are shot at when they’re called into a street to help, as they come out-airguns that might be used to shoot at them. Care workers sometimes say to us, "I’m very frightened of going into that house because I think that person is a bit unstable and I believe they have a gun"-that sort of thing.

Chair: We get the point.

Q198 Steve McCabe: Can I just ask a very minor point about the organisation? We’re often asked about groups who give evidence. I know that the network came out of the aftermath of Dunblane. Can I just ask, you are a not for profit organisation, where do your finances come from?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: We run on empty basically. We don’t employ anybody.

Steve McCabe: Okay.

Chair: I think that’s fair enough.

Mr Winnick: He wants to make a contribution.

Chair: Mark Reckless has the very final question, if he is very brief.

Q199 Mark Reckless: Ms Marshall-Andrews, you stated a few minutes ago that there was collusion between the police and firearms applicants. Could I ask you to clarify what you meant by that?

Ms Marshall-Andrews: Well, we try and get information repeatedly about the legal status of guns used in crime, and we can never get it. What’s said to us is, "Oh it’s not in the public’s interest" or, "It’s insecure". I forget what the phrase is but it’s a threat to public safety to tell us whether a particular gun was a legal gun or not. Having worked in the business for 14 years there is collusion between the shooters and the police to keep things quiet, to keep things secret. I think that festers and it’s not good.

Chair: Thank you, Ms Marshall-Andrews, Dr North. For you in particular, Dr North, your daughter died at the age of only five in Dunblane; she would have been 19 this year. This is something that you would obviously never forget and the sympathies of this Committee are obviously with you as well, as you think of her and as you pursue your campaign. You can never get her back, but we do respect the fact that you have come here and that you have shared your views with us.

Dr North: Thank you, Chair, and could I just use this opportunity to offer my sympathy to all those who have lost loved ones in Cumbria in June.

Chair: Thank you very much.