Raoul Moat

[Bizarra]

A show stopping program for Jeremy Kyle, if he had gotten him to appear ?

Troubled life led to brutal death

Agitated Moat set out to fight perceived slights

By ROBERT MENDICK in NORTHUMBRIA

Sunday July 11 2010

AS RAOUL Moat lay on the grass, his gun pointed at his neck, witnesses heard him tell police: "I have not got a dad -- no one cares about me."

Feeling alone, the man who had goaded police during a week-long manhunt had finally lost his bravado.

Cornered by armed officers at the edge of a river and with spotlights trained on him, Moat appeared a shadow of his public image as a steroid-addicted, violent bodybuilder.

Almost whimpering, the 37-year-old had become increasingly agitated during the six-hour standoff. Finally, at 1.15am yesterday, Moat, who never knew his father and whose mother had disowned him, tucked the shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger in circumstances which are now under investigation. Part of that inquiry will include the police decision to stun him with a Taser twice during the standoff.

In the lead up to the standoff, police had become increasingly concerned about Moat's state of mind and the growing danger he posed, not just to police but to the public.

On Saturday a week ago, he shot Samantha Stobbart, the mother of one of his children, and killed her boyfriend Chris Brown, a karate instructor whom he mistakenly believed was a police officer. The next day he shot and wounded PC David Rathband.

Police feared Moat, a domineering bully with a long history of violence, was about to tip even further over the edge. It can now be reported that days after those shootings, he had left a rambling, four-hour message containing the extraordinary threat to kill a member of the public for every piece of inaccurate information published about him.

The message was on a voice recorder discovered by police at a tent he had used and abandoned outside Rothbury.

Journalists were now targets, as well as police, whom he blamed for wrecking his life. Particularly upsetting was an interview with his mother whom he had not seen for 18 years. She had said of her son: "He would be better dead."

During a subsequent press briefing last week, officers said they had taken advice from psychologists who believed that Moat's "rules have changed" and that any reporting of his private life could endanger the public, prompting police to take the unusual step of requesting a voluntary news blackout.

Police distributed a briefing note on Thursday based on a psychological profile of the killer, details of which can now be disclosed. The briefing read: "There is evidence to support the following anti-social personality traits -- irritability and aggressiveness.

"He has indicated significant unhappiness with misreporting by the media, believing the police to have manipulated the media deliberately. As a result of this, he has threatened to harm members of the public for each inaccuracy he perceives."

Yesterday, criminologist Prof David Wilson said Moat showed classic signs of being a paranoid narcissist who had used "a gun to maintain control over a set of circumstances in which he increasingly had no power and control".

"This is someone who beat his partner, beat his child and then, like most domestic abusers, apologises for that violence in the belief he should somehow be forgiven."

Moat had a history of violence. For the six years he was going out with Ms Stobbart, he would use his strength to control her. "He split her head open one night. He threw her against the wall and jumped on her stomach," said Ms Stobbart's grandmother.

When he was jailed in April for assault, Ms Stobbart used it as an opportunity to ditch her partner.

In prison, Moat was already hatching his revenge. When he finally walked out of Durham jail on July 1, following an 18-week term, only one thing was on his mind. He had set his future, violent path on getting his own back on his former girlfriend, her new boyfriend and the police.

Despite the attacks Moat had carried out, some mourned his passing. A white candle burned at a makeshift shrine set up outside his home yesterday. Flowers were left with messages of condolence.

Witnesses to Moat's final confrontation with police heard one, perhaps two, shots being fired and then shouts of: "Get the gun away. Get the gun away." One man who saw the whole incident unfurl said: "From what I can see he shot himself. He laid down and shot himself."

Throughout the standoff, a negotiator had tried to talk Moat into giving up.

A childhood friend was also escorted through the cordon, although it is not clear if he spoke to Moat.

Adding to the confusion was the sudden and bizarre arrival at the scene of former England footballer Paul Gascoigne. "I just want to give him some therapy and say 'Come on Moaty, it's Gazza'. I guarantee, Moaty, he won't shoot me. I am good friends with him," Gascoigne said.

There were varying accounts of how police caught up with the gunman, but it appears he had emerged in daylight from his hiding place.

Margaret Blanchard, a retired HR manager, saw the moment Moat was cornered.

"I glanced at the back of his head and caught sight of his Mohican underneath his baseball cap," said Mrs Blanchard. "Before I could call the police, two police cars turned up and four armed officers jumped out. Moat just turned round and he was holding a shotgun to his neck. Quite quickly, he dropped to his knees."

Keeping six metres away, the officers sat in place while Moat pointed the gun at his own head or neck. Police marksmen took up positions surrounding him.

Lying down on the ground and with no chance of escape, Moat finally ended his own life. It was a death as violent as the life he had lived.

©Telegraph

- ROBERT MENDICK in NORTHUMBRIA

Sunday Independent

[Raistlin]

Saves the costs of keeping him in prison

[Bizarra]

Saves the costs of keeping him in prison

Again with the "Costs"!

[Raistlin]

You don't get rich by spending it...

[Bizarra]

You don't get rich by spending it...

But, in case no one told you You can't take it with you :( No pockets in a shroud, & likewise if you disappear, Mage fashion, in a cloud of foul smelling black smoke... same thing applies :hokus-pokus: :lol2:

[Raistlin]

I don't have a cloud of foul smelling black smoke, I drive an Aygo not a Corolla :D

[Bizarra]

I don't have a cloud of foul smelling black smoke, I drive an Aygo not a Corolla :D

I dare you to post that vile remark in Corolla Section !

[Phoenix999]

The man is dead.... as Raist says "it saves on costs"

He was a violent murderer so lets say "good riddance to bad rubbish"

[Bizarra]

The man is dead.... as Raist says "it saves on costs"

He was a violent murderer so lets say "good riddance to bad rubbish"

Were you Judge Jeffries, the Hanging Judge, in a previous incarnation? :lol2:

[Raistlin]

An eye for an eye

[Bizarra]

An eye for an eye

Aye, Aye, Skipper

Not to mention a tooth for a tooth I'll keep my own, thank you very much I don't mind strange tongues, but I'm not swopping eyes or teeth!

[Raistlin]

But you can always get another set...

[Bizarra]

But you can always get another set...

No I can't ! I'm not on a Medical Card & I'm not shelling out again for a couple on a Chrome Cobalt base :censor:

As I said, I'll lend my tongue to any { well almost] Woman, but I'm keeping my gnashers

Someone else's eye ? You wouldn't know what it's been looking at :o

[Phoenix999]

The man is dead.... as Raist says "it saves on costs"

He was a violent murderer so lets say "good riddance to bad rubbish"

Were you Judge Jeffries, the Hanging Judge, in a previous incarnation?

No.... I am sure I was Matthew Hopkins

[s m smith]

The man is dead.... as Raist says "it saves on costs"

He was a violent murderer so lets say "good riddance to bad rubbish"

Were you Judge Jeffries, the Hanging Judge, in a previous incarnation?

No.... I am sure I was Matthew Hopkins

the guys dead now let let it go, for the sake of the victims and family

[Bizarra]

The man is dead.... as Raist says "it saves on costs"

He was a violent murderer so lets say "good riddance to bad rubbish"

Were you Judge Jeffries, the Hanging Judge, in a previous incarnation?

No.... I am sure I was Matthew Hopkins

OOOh ! Proper nasty, he were

[Phoenix999]

the guys dead now let let it go, for the sake of the victims and family

I suggest you phone all the TV and radio news programmes first

[bothwell_buyer]

The whole thing appears to have been a farcical theatrical production badly made by a partnership of media - starved of a decent news story anywhere else - and an inept police capability who were well beyond their abilities in dealing with both the press attention and trying to hold their 'reputation' together. Whilst in no way supporting the guy who committed horrible crimes and whatever, the media and the police boxed the guy into a corner where the only way out was death. A clever approach would have been to play it much lower key and get the thing sorted - but the recent deaths in Cumbria meant the media wanted blood, and blood they got.

The lessons from this is that police officers should get an allowance for haircuts and the media should be shot.

This act was of no great difference to most any other murders of passion after all. Or maybe are the government officials still smarting from the results of the bloody sunday affair 38 years ago? One wonders.

[KPARRIS-JONES]

Glad he is gone. He was of no use to society.

If I had my own way I would have allowed him to be tortured and then killed, to ease the pain of those whom he inflicted it upon. He deserved no less, and he certainly didn't deserve such an easy escape from what he did.

[Ravi Shankar]

I will miss Sue Sims