Mass shooting is first in Britain for more than ten years

The mass shooting in Plymouth is the first in Britain for more than a decade.

The incident on Thursday in which Jake Davison killed five people before killing himself is said to be the first involving an active shooter for 11 years.

In 2010, taxi driver Derrick Bird killed 12 people in Cumbria and injured 11 others before taking his own life.

Still described as one of the deadliest mass shootings in British history is the Dunblane massacre in March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 pupils and a teacher at a Scottish primary school, as well as injuring 15 others, before killing himself.

Prior to that there was the Hungerford massacre, a series of random shootings in the Berkshire town in August 1987, when 27-year-old Michael Robert Ryan shot dead 16 people, including an unarmed police officer and his own mother, before shooting himself.

Mass shootings tend to be defined as involving multiple targets and locations and are generally thought to involve three or more fatalities not including the gunman.

Another recent high-profile shooting prompted the 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt of Raoul Moat.

The spurned former bouncer shot his ex-partner and murdered her new lover with a blast of his shotgun before going on the run and shooting at a police constable, leaving him totally blind.

Moat shot himself after being cornered by armed police while negotiators tried to get him to put down his weapon.