Victoria Smurfit has revealed her plans to move to the UK, after a gunman showed up at her young daughter’s school in California.
The Irish actress and her kids Evie (14), Ridley (11), and Flynn (10) have lived in Santa Monica in Los Angeles since 2012.
Speaking to Ray D’Arcy on RTÉ Radio 1, the 45-year-old said: “There’s loads of reasons (behind moving) but having a gunman outside your child’s school was just the icing on the cake, really.”
“I was about two hours north of LA about to shoot a short film when I got a text from Evie saying ‘We’re in lock-down, please don’t call me’. I just said ‘is it real?'”
“She said yes and all I could do in the most helpless moment ever was say ‘hide baby, hide’.
“For an hour I didn’t know what on earth was happening and both girls were in the school. You can’t contact them, you can’t call the school,” she explained.
Victoria said the gunman, who was a former student at the school, was arrested by police.
Speaking about her children, the actress said: “They’re scared. They’re actually not going to go into school today. I’m going to let them work from home. I thought I’d give them a day at home to calm them down and then they can crack on, as we do.”
Victoria said her children knew what to do, as she school regularly carries out lockdown drills.
“Four times a year they lock down the school and they all hide under their desk and they find a spot in their room to hide,” she said.
“That’s just something they do because it’s real here, whether you like it or not, just like the earthquake drills are real because earthquakes happen.”
Speaking about the availability of guns in the US, Victoria said: “People – dads and mums – have guns in the garages because those are the acceptable rules here. It’s just crazy. Culturally, I can’t get my head around it at all.”
