Cumbria shootings: Derrick Bird was jilted by Thai beauty

Cumbria shootings: Killer Derrick Bird was jilted by Thai beauty
By Brian Roberts 7/06/2010

Derrick Bird loved life in Thailand so much he was thinking of starting a new life there.

He had fallen for a pretty Thai girl called Hon and thought she was going to share his future with him.

Besotted Bird sent Hon cash on a regular basis, usually a few hundred pounds, and had transferred £1,000 into her bank account a few weeks ago.

But out of the blue he received a text from Hon, 32, saying never to get in touch again as she had found someone else.

A friend, too afraid to be named, believes being dumped could have been a factor in tipping Bird, 52 - who already held grudges against his brother, solicitor and fellow cabbies - over the edge.

He said: "Derrick said he'd been made a fool out of. He had a lot of problems, money worries and a fall-out with his family and he said the fact that he had this woman in Thailand gave him reason to be hopeful. He had been sending money over to Hon for months and he saved like crazy to get back over there to see her and to go diving, which was his other love in life.
A few weeks ago he sent her £1,000 and then heard nothing from her for days.
Finally, the woman texted him and told him never to contact her again and she was seeing someone else. I'm not sure what other problems he had, but it changed him.
He went downhill from there, but no one in the world would ever suspect what he would go and do." It has been revealed that Bird was due to fly back to Thailand this month.

His long-term plan was for him and Hon to set up home together in Thailand.

Another pal, taxi driver Terry Kennedy, was with Bird on a five-week holiday in Pattaya in 2007 when he met the girl.

Terry, 52, who was injured by Bird on Wednesday, told our sister paper The People: "Derrick's been single since I've known him and he did what any other single guy would do out there.

"He chatted to girls in the bars, bought them drinks, took a couple back to the hotel, nothing outrageous. I knew Derrick liked the lass so I told him to go for it - he had nothing to lose."

Over the next five weeks Bird wooed Hon with drinks and gifts. And for the next three years he wrote to her weekly and sent hundreds of emails and texts.

Weeks ago, she sent him a message saying the relationship was over.

Texpat wrote:Luckily the prostitute was smart enough to see through it.

Frankie 1 wrote:He starts a relationship with a prostitute

Frankie 1 wrote:He starts a relationship with a prostitute

Farang1 wrote:

Texpat wrote:Luckily the prostitute was smart enough to see through it.

Frankie 1 wrote:He starts a relationship with a prostitute

I read through the article a couple times and I don't see anywhere her occupation being mentioned..

Farang1 wrote:

Texpat wrote:Luckily the prostitute was smart enough to see through it.

Frankie 1 wrote:He starts a relationship with a prostitute

"I charge £10 a time and the kinky stuff is always with British men"-Prostitute called Ploy

From NICK FRANCIS, in Pattaya, Thailand
BATHED in the neon glare of endless bars and clubs, scantily clad Thai prostitutes crowd the street, beckoning Western men in with promises of sexual acts for no more than £5.
They pout and strut, dressed in just knickers and bras while British punters, melting with sweat in 31°C, grab them without shame.

Desperate for the cash these sex tourists have come to spend, girls allow themselves to be groped like pieces of meat.

The girls coo phrases such as "I want to be your girlfriend" - but it's clearly the only English they know.

They repeat the words like a mantra, hoping to win someone's attention so they can take them to a dingy back room for 15 minutes of sex for cash.

One told our team that she was only 15 and wanted to be their "girlfriend all night long".
Warped

This is Pattaya in Thailand - home to 50,000 prostitutes and where gun-toting maniac Derrick Bird repeatedly came to get a piece of this unsavoury action.

It is a perverts' paradise, a haven for those looking for seedy sex with young girls, many of them well under 15, the legal age of consent in the country.

Bird, who went on a rampage in Cumbria last week, killing 12 before turning the gun on himself, visited Pattaya twice a year to pick up sex for a tenner a time. He became obsessed with one of the prostitutes.

His lust-fuelled holidays centred on a bar called Spicy Girls A Go-Go - which is no longer open - where girls paraded in lingerie waiting to be selected by a Western tourist and taken away for sex.

The Sun spoke to a working girl called Ploy, who told how this tawdry industry is almost entirely sustained by British sex tourists.
In broken English she said: "British men visit very much. I only ever meet British or German men. No locals want sex with prostitutes.

"I charge £10 a time and the kinky stuff is always with British men. They ask me to tie them up and hit them or I let them hit me while we have sex."

Ploy, who said she was 22, listed endless other warped requests she gets but they can't be printed in a family newspaper.

There are thousands of bars in Pattaya, most of them with working girls and packed with fat, balding Brits.

The Sun spoke to a British sex tourist in a bar called Maximum. He said: "There's only one reason I come here - the girls. Look at them. They're so young and petite.

"You can't get girls like this back home, at least not without paying a fortune. And they will do whatever you want, so long as you pay."
Trapped

The tattooed tourist, who spoke with a northern accent and introduced himself as Dave, added: "I reckon about 70 per cent of the people out here are Brits.

"I come here every year and meet up with the same bunch of lads every time. I once had four different girls in a day. I was popping Viagra like you wouldn't believe.

"By the time I got home I was knackered. It was the craziest week - just getting on the beer and s******g.

"I'm divorced now, so why not come to get all the girls I want? It's not like it's costing me much."

In strip club The Classroom, where the dancers dress in schoolgirls' uniforms, we spoke to married Andy, a scrawny middle-aged salesman from Cardiff.
He said: "My weakness is girls. I love them. I've got a wife and two grown-up kids but once a year me and my mates come out to Pattaya while the missus goes to Spain with her mates.

"She just thinks it's strippers here - no worse than at home. She doesn't know you can go all the way with any girl you want.

"What she doesn't know doesn't hurt her. I mainly like to watch the girls but will s*** two or three during the week. I prefer to arrive in the rainy season as the girls are more desperate for customers so charge less. It's like being a kid in a sweet shop.

Tony, who had a Scottish accent but said he lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, told us: "There's no end to the fun that can be had. I would never take my girlfriend, especially as we're on the rocks at the moment."

Tony, in his early thirties and drinking in Maximum, added: "I've made loads of mates here. It's the same crowd every time. Everyone assumes it's just weirdos out here but I've met lawyers, students, bankers.

"It's just a great place for people who want sex but can't be bothered with all the difficult stuff that goes with it at home.

"It's not like you have to romance these girls and meet their mothers."

To get sex, a tourist simply buys a girl a drink then pays the bar 500 Thai baht (£10) to take her away.

It costs 1,000 baht to have the girl all night. Most bars have "short time" rooms for "quickie sex".

It is 500 baht to have a girl for 15 minutes in a back room, which is used by hundreds of punters a week.

A pint of beer costs £1.50 and a Thai curry and rice £2.

The sex trade takes place in Walking Street and Second Street in Pattaya. The two-mile-long thoroughfare is lined with nothing but sex bars.

There is an area for gay prostitutes, one for transsexuals - Boyztown - and, most disturbingly, an area for very young girls.
In most hotels condoms are supplied in the rooms, usually found in the mini bar, as HIV is rife - rumoured to be as high as 40 per cent among the girls.

Most of the girls flood in from the impoverished rural areas in the hope of making money and end up trapped in this desperate world.

Prostitution is ILLEGAL in Thailand but cops turn a blind eye in return for cash bungs. One bar owner, a Brit who refused to be named, told us: "The cops expect about £50 a month. This country is hideously corrupt."

Pattaya - population 110,000 - is dirt poor. There is a constant stench of sewage and stray dogs scavenge the streets for food. It is a seedy, fluorescent-lit nightmare.

The sex trade in Thailand is worth millions of Pounds a year and the few genuine tourists who come to Pattaya for its beach and great seafood are shamed by these depraved ambassadors for Britain.

Despairingly, one young Brit said: "What must Thai people think of us? All these blokes want to do is have sex with young girls because they wouldn't ever get sex back at home. It makes me wish I was a million miles away."

In strip club The Classroom, where the dancers dress in schoolgirls' uniforms, we spoke to married Andy, a scrawny middle-aged salesman from Cardiff.
He said: "My weakness is girls. I love them. I've got a wife and two grown-up kids but once a year me and my mates come out to Pattaya while the missus goes to Spain with her mates.

"She just thinks it's strippers here - no worse than at home. She doesn't know you can go all the way with any girl you want.

"What she doesn't know doesn't hurt her. I mainly like to watch the girls but will s*** two or three during the week. I prefer to arrive in the rainy season as the girls are more desperate for customers so charge less. It's like being a kid in a sweet shop.