- 5 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00this is the gunman from Berkeley last night you police have took too much off me over the years
00:00:13you know you know you think you can take your missus I'm coming to get you I'm not on the run
00:00:19I am coming to get you
00:00:30I was in Sunderland police station a relatively quiet night and nothing really to report I
00:00:58I was working with a young sergeant at about 22 3 in the morning I said let's get our coats on
00:01:04it's time to get out of the building and go home get some sleep are we ready to go and he said no
00:01:09somebody's been shot in Berkeley in Gateshead and the control room are on the phone now and
00:01:13they need to speak to you right now 999 call was received this is what we would call a
00:01:23dynamic situation it's developing on the phone as you're speaking the information at that time was
00:01:34there's a man outside and he is shooting people he is killing people you cannot send unarmed cops to
00:01:39that you got sent armed cops there was somebody in urgent need of medical care on the ground outside
00:01:49who appeared have been shot and it became apparent that there was someone else in a house who'd been
00:01:54shot through a window the initial assessments were that the female had a gunshot injury to her left arm and
00:02:04her abdomen she was described as critically ill and required an urgent medical attention so she was
00:02:13removed to hospital the male had gunshot injuries to his torso and his head it was quickly obvious that
00:02:22he had been shot dead I just had a few days away from work and I got a call from the news desk asking me
00:02:32if I would do some overtime and the story had broken I parked my car close to a main road and just walk the
00:02:43last few steps into the estate and it looked like you know quite a neat council estate the kind of place
00:02:51where children would all play on the green together outside and I got the impression that the families who
00:02:59lived around the green were all fairly close the police had told us that there were three people
00:03:08downstairs in the living area so it was the mom it was the daughter and it was the daughter's boyfriend
00:03:15and they'd been watching television and just chatting into the early hours when this horrible violence was
00:03:27visited upon them and it came out of nowhere as far as they were concerned
00:03:32the victim was a lad called Christopher Brown and the female was Samantha Stobard and Christopher Brown was her new boyfriend
00:03:49critically the mother of Samantha Stobard named the attacker is a man called Raoul Mote Raoul Mote was the
00:04:01ex-partner of Samantha Stobard so very quickly we could see we were looking at a domestic style attack here
00:04:11what the witnesses were saying was that an individual had confronted the couple shot the male and as the
00:04:24male tried to run away followed them reloaded his gun and shot him again in cold blood and he was lying in a
00:04:31grassed area in the middle of the houses the evidence to me suggested that Christopher was targeted and
00:04:42certainly the attack I would describe as a cold-bloody's assassination Raoul Mote then turned his attention to
00:04:53the female and he fired through the window and hit her he then quite calmly walked away for the scene
00:05:02my name is Jamie I was a colleague and a friend of Christopher Brown the morning of July the third I made my
00:05:19way over to Samantha's house as I went to go to her house I remember seeing the whole area cordoned off
00:05:29with police tape so I was wondering what was going on I tried phoning Chris to see if I could get hold of
00:05:40him but to no answer I realized that I couldn't just walk across the grass area towards Samantha's house I knew
00:05:52that if I went round the streets I could get to the back of her house I remember knocking on the back door
00:06:01and a neighbor shouting over are you looking for Samantha I said yeah do you know where they are and I
00:06:12initially thought he said they'd gone to the shop I asked which shop in case you know they might still
00:06:22be there he then said no someone's been shot a detective came and spoke to me I was sitting in
00:06:36the back of a car and that's that's when she told me that that Chris had been shot dead and that Samantha
00:06:47had been shot and was critically wounded in in hospital
00:06:59there's no sign of the weapon so our working assumption is that he's traveling somewhere and he's got the firearm in his
00:07:06possession therefore the threat still exists what we didn't know at the time this wasn't anybody
00:07:14this was a particularly ill-motivated cold-blooded killer that was out there you immediately have a
00:07:23manhunt you know who you're looking for the next question is where is he and how can we catch him
00:07:30as soon as possible safely as possible before he injures anybody else
00:07:35this is a major incident someone's been killed so there's a homicide someone else has been very badly
00:07:57injured and with a firearm and the suspect is on the run
00:08:01there's a helicopter up we're using everything we have there were dozens and dozens of people in all
00:08:10spheres so you know the investigation team they were out the intelligence team were out the scenes of
00:08:16crime people were out the lead investigator was there making decisions about what to do first
00:08:22in the early stages most house was searched there was evidence of shotgun ammunition there was strange
00:08:33situation where there's a noose in the loft as if somebody wanted to hang themself there was some
00:08:39suicide notes or notes with suicidal thoughts on them there was an indication that he might be
00:08:46somewhat paranoid because he had his house covered in cctv there were some associates and family members and we
00:08:55looked at all of those in terms of trying to trace them but of course none of those and provided any fruit
00:09:00the forensic examination of the scene in the subsequent hours revealed shotgun residue shotgun cartridges and there
00:09:11was a bag at the scene underneath the window of the house and there was a telephone which were later
00:09:18attributed to being raw moats telephone you've also got all your witnesses around the scene people in
00:09:24the area woke up and were alerted to what was going on and some people had very clear views of what was
00:09:30happening so they had to be seen and spoken to there was no firearm left at the scene so the manhunt becomes
00:09:42all the more difficult and dangerous because you're hunting someone who's quite clearly willing to use a gun
00:09:49in front of witnesses extreme level of violence cold-blooded and that tells me that the offender was I'm no
00:09:58psychologist but was probably quite psychopathic and brutal and his approach to what he was doing and
00:10:04quite determined a couple of days after Chris had been killed I actually got a phone call from the police
00:10:15force asking if I could be the one to formally identify Chris that's probably one of the worst things about
00:10:27it is still having that vision of seeing Chris and yeah knowing that that was my friend that was that was
00:10:37there and that had his life cut short for for no reason Raoul moats personality and the life that he led
00:10:50details of that quickly started to emerge the fact that he'd been a nightclub bouncer that he was a former
00:10:59bodybuilder he could turn from someone who was relatively rational and calm into a violent thought it took a lot of
00:11:13steroids to help him bulk up as big as possible and people knew him well just described as a massive man
00:11:19he was six foot three tall a very imposing character he was known to Northumbria police he had a bit of
00:11:26domestic abuse history and low-level assault however it is significant that his last arrest was for assault
00:11:35on a young person for which he later received 18 week sentence of imprisonment and for me it shows you the
00:11:44type of person you're dealing with somebody who's willing to assault women and assault children
00:11:50moat had a very complex relationship history he'd had multiple partners multiple children he was a very
00:12:00difficult person to live with none of the relationship lasted his relationship with Samantha did last quite a
00:12:06number of years we met when she was about 16 year old he walked on the doors she was attending the night
00:12:13clubs in Newcastle they got together she moved in with them in 2005 ish when she was 17 year old they had a
00:12:21child together this is Raoul moat and this is an audio log a record what I'm doing what I'm thinking I like Sam a lot from
00:12:41where before we went out me and Sam started seeing each other in 2005 Sam was different you know we loved
00:12:48each other and then we were inseparable absolutely inseparable however there was a lot of unreported
00:12:55domestic abuse through their relationship he was very prone to jealousy he was very jealous about any
00:13:03interaction she had with other people incidents of assaults controlling behavior try keep on top of
00:13:12wherever she was going or she was out of friends I mean it was one day when I've lost it I've pushed her
00:13:18and she's hit the floor she's split her head you know I was gutted absolutely gutted you know I'm pissed off
00:13:25you know with myself as a result the relationship started to break down and she moved out in 2009
00:13:31although they were separate Raoul was never convinced that the relationship was over and was always intent on getting back together again and the problem for Samantha and trying to sever the relationship was the child
00:13:50she was giving them access to the child so they always had this contact and during the contact all he
00:13:57wanted was to get Samantha back to him he was obsessed by her and wanted her back I used to go around and
00:14:06give her flowers it's all not a duel of her you know and I do care if you want to call it obsession call it
00:14:12I would just call it like deep-seated love you know missing her needing her and that kind of thing I couldn't take her out of my mind she's like a drug to me you know
00:14:28in 2010 when he'd gone to prison she just had enough she wanted to be away from which she didn't really know how to extricate herself from this difficult relationship
00:14:37and he didn't like the fact that she wasn't coming in to visit him I think there was an incident in the visiting area where she refused to give it either kiss or cuddle him
00:14:47and I think that sent him back to his cells quite angry and it appeared to me that when he was in prison that was her opportunity to finally
00:14:57say Raoul this has finished it's over and I think when Samantha eventually revealed that she had a new boyfriend
00:15:05that sent him on the spiral to find out who he was and to do him some harm he was gripped by this
00:15:13paranoid rage that he needed to take some action because he'd lost his girlfriend what was refusing
00:15:18to a accept the relationship was over and B except that she would have the audacity to have a new love
00:15:26interest a new boyfriend she was clearly trying to use that time when he was in prison to put an end to the
00:15:32relationship for good I started karate I think I was around eight or nine years old and once I got into
00:15:45it I really really got into it and I loved it from that moment when I was going through training on
00:15:52becoming an instructor Chris was the person that I was to shadow and that's how we became friends as
00:16:01well with training he was quite a scary guy very loud very focused but outside of training as a person
00:16:12he was a really friendly gentle funny guy always great to be around always trying to make you laugh
00:16:20yeah it was a very positive person to be around Chris met Sam we were canvassing around the area that
00:16:29she'd lived Chris got Samantha signed up for the classes that's how those two first met and you could
00:16:38see that there was there was a spark between them she had a really bubbly personality she was really
00:16:44friendly she loved to have a laugh I think that's probably one of the main reasons that he was he
00:16:50was attracted to her I knew that Samantha had spoken to her ex-partner about Chris and that she was happy
00:17:03and that she told her ex-partner to leave them alone what became apparent was Samantha when she was
00:17:14speaking to Raoul I think one of our mechanisms for protecting herself was she told Raoul that Christopher
00:17:21Brown was a police officer she'd said that for understandable reasons because she hoped that it would put
00:17:27Raoul Moat off and give her some protection because she knew just how violent he could be she thought
00:17:35that by telling him that her new partner was a police officer it would back off Moat being Moat it was the
00:17:41complete opposite it was a red rag to a bull and it sort of really drove him on to seek revenge
00:17:46he started planning to kill or cause serious harm to Christopher and Samantha from his prison cell
00:17:58he was getting one of his friends to try and do some surveillance and go and sit at Samantha's house
00:18:08and try and find out who this boyfriend is what he looks like what car he might be driving and his
00:18:15efforts to try and identify Christopher started at that early stage from within prison he asked a
00:18:23friend to get a car with six wheels on his release it looked like prison code for him to source a gun
00:18:33for his release because I don't know of any cars that are six wheels he thought he'd lost everything
00:18:39he thought he'd lost access to his children because the charge he'd been convicted of he'd lost his
00:18:44partner he's lost his property in his mind he's got nothing more to lose so he's going to go out in a
00:18:49blaze of glory by taking revenge against the people that he sees are at the heart of triggering this
00:18:55huge loss in his life which is Samantha and her new partner the normal circumstances when you get a
00:19:04manhunt like this they normally take hours and there's normally a trail to follow but this whole thing
00:19:12went strangely quiet there was nobody telling us anything about him there was no telephone to
00:19:18follow because he left it at the scene we had no vehicles because all these vehicles were accounted
00:19:22for we're fishing in a very very very big ocean trying to find him then in the early hours of Sunday
00:19:33morning the control room at Northumbria police received a treble nine call and it was from a
00:19:39man claiming to be Raoul Moat hello there this is the gunman from Berkeley last night my name is Raoul Moat
00:19:47he said I'm the gunman from Berkeley in his mind he was convinced that the police were out to to get
00:20:07him and he couldn't let that thought go he admitted shooting Christopher Brown who he believed was a
00:20:14police officer and declared that he hated Northumbria police I wouldn't have shot him okay I went to jail
00:20:23and that's when he makes the chilling threat that he's hunting police officers he made it quite clear
00:20:51in that call that he would stop any police officer who got in his way well the staff are very concerned
00:20:59they're worried every police officer that goes out of the building is potentially a target of this man
00:21:08who's still active and on the run with a gun and not afraid to use it
00:21:21around 12 minutes after that 999 call Raoul Moat crept up onto Dave Rathband's marked Volvo T5 police
00:21:43car that was parked just on the western bypass to the west of Newcastle
00:21:47it's a place that's quite common for emergency vehicles to set because it's got a big paved area
00:21:54so David was sitting there monitoring traffic coming back and forward that's what David was doing
00:22:00he was doing his job and more effectively creeped up on him and took him by surprise and David became aware
00:22:09of something at his left hand side and he turned and there was a gun put up against the window
00:22:16and it was fired and it hit him in the face
00:22:20and mort and this again goes back to his his mindset and his brutality and cold-bloodedness
00:22:33shot him again and that hit him in the shoulder
00:22:36he fell into the footwell but he was able to hit his emergency button and he started shouting for
00:22:46assistance
00:23:01it's really rare for police officers to be shot at in the UK fortunately but to be shot at point-blank range
00:23:11whilst parked in his police car wow absolutely incredible it was clear in my head at that time
00:23:20that the investigation had no escalated to a whole new level David Rathband had been shot in the face
00:23:31simply because he was a police officer you know he was taken to hospital and the atmosphere changed
00:23:40it was quite sombre and emotional and there was police officers of lots of experience found it very
00:23:47difficult to accept that a cop had been shot he was critically ill and there was a bit of emotion there
00:23:58I don't mind admitting it just shows that the police officers are human and I think it gets rightly
00:24:08or wrongly it gets personal when one of your colleagues gets shot rightly or wrongly but there
00:24:15was a determination I'm going to need more firearms officers so we're trying to get some of them out of
00:24:24their beds at four five six o'clock in the morning and make sure that they are suitably briefed and
00:24:30deployed as soon as as soon as possible the need for firearms officers to search houses or locations
00:24:38just went through the roof I remember colleagues from South Yorkshire from the Metropolitan Police from
00:24:45Merseyside Police from Greater Manchester so armed officers were coming from forces all over England to
00:24:53support us in that police and operation there was a growing sense of man on the wrong you know
00:25:00somebody who's armed who's exceptionally dangerous it vastly increased that public interest in the story
00:25:10there's no two doubts about that this wasn't a regional story this was a national story
00:25:17astonishingly Moe then makes a second call are you taking me serious now I've just owned your office
00:25:26I was their own remote in the west end of Newcastle yeah yeah well I'm gonna destroy a few laser you've
00:25:32destroyed me I'm gonna keep coming please you're gonna have to kill me right I'm never gonna stop
00:25:39basically so say see I told you so I've done it I've shot a police officer he weren't taking me
00:25:44seriously and he made it clear that he's not gonna stop until he completes his mission he's never gonna
00:25:50be brought in alive eerie and and very threatening you can hear the aggression in his voice the hatred he's
00:26:00convinced that the police have hounded him to death have made his life a misery and he's done nothing
00:26:10wrong he's not willing to accept responsibility for anything he's done it's all everybody else's fault
00:26:15it was a very real concern that he would go and identify and shoot another random police officer doing
00:26:24their duty around Newcastle he said he was gonna do it it was a concern that he would we go into almost
00:26:31the form of lockdown police officers that are deployed and they only go out in cars they're going
00:26:36out together we're not walking beats singularly this is a an awful individual intent on causing as much
00:26:45harm as possible and not afraid you know normally people that are on the run avoid the police on the
00:26:52contrary on this occasion he'd gone after the police it really was unusual and and very concerning
00:27:02we got a phone call from somebody in Newcastle it was saying he's a friend of Raul Mo and he's got
00:27:07this letter that Raul Mo's written passed to him and he wants it to be made public we went to this this
00:27:13guy's house we took possession of the letter first reading of it it's just unbelievable the level of
00:27:18detail the background detail the detail of Mo's own life and the constant page by page paranoid rage and
00:27:27rantings and he's targeting on the police and certain phrases leapt out you know about hunting police
00:27:32officers and it clearly brought it home to you that this guy was not going to stop there was going to
00:27:37be further attacks but it went beyond that it made it clear that he'd had issues with his family he was
00:27:41estranged from all of his family apart from his grandmother who brought him up never knew his dad
00:27:45estranged from his mother estranged from his brother he clearly painted a picture of an isolated man who
00:27:51was left on his own he'd lost everything and he was now set on revenge I've had a hard life I've not
00:27:59belonged anywhere I'm estranged massively for me family you know I've lost absolutely everything I mean the
00:28:07kids are treasure but I know I can't have them with some great you know they make me out to be this this
00:28:15dangerous one what is a dangerous one going to do when he's at the like end of his life
00:28:27the random nature of what he'd already done was shocking so I remember there being a distinct feeling that
00:28:33anything could happen more had mentioned that on the treble nines I've got hostages and it was a bit
00:28:50of a oh moment we might have a genuine hostage situation is this just another ramblings of a
00:29:01maniac but Sunday afternoon I was informed that there was an individual saying her brother might
00:29:09be been held hostage then I get another bit of information and it was another family saying we
00:29:16think our son is the hostage of Raul Moat and that was a very sobering moment because we've now got not
00:29:25only the lives of the public and police officers who he's threatened to kill we've now got two
00:29:32hostages that we need to consider on everything we do moving forward up until that stage the whole
00:29:41investigation was very very over we were appealing to the public we were telling the public stuff through
00:29:47the media in terms of the hostages their safety and their life becomes a priority we had to be a bit
00:29:56more covert in our investigations because there is always the concern that any reference to hostages
00:30:07may put their lives in danger at the moment was story was a very fast-moving story every single day
00:30:11there was a huge development and on the Monday there was a request by the police not to report that fact
00:30:15because if it became widely known he had hostages it might prove a greater risk to the hostages so
00:30:21there was a request for a media blackout the media complied with that and it wasn't reported we recovered
00:30:27from letters from the hostages that had been delivered to family members basically saying that
00:30:36they were being held hostage by moat and they were quite suspicious I would say although they were
00:30:45claiming they were hostages they were quite tempered about saying don't worry and I think one of them
00:30:51actually said I'll be fine burn this the two hostages one of them is a lad called Carl Ness and from
00:31:03information and intelligence it was quite clear that Carl Ness was quite a long-standing friend and
00:31:12associate of moat but the other one was a lad called Coram Awan and his association to moat was less obvious
00:31:24one important development was that the police found on the CCTV at the roundabout where David
00:31:35Rathband had parked a car going around the roundabout it was a black Lexus and you know this was obviously
00:31:44an important potential lead for the police to follow up where is this car where is it going to turn up next
00:31:52on the Monday night there was a reported robbery in Seton Delaville in Northumberland an individual
00:32:02went into a chip shop presented a gun and robbed the shop of the takins that individual got into a black car
00:32:12described as a wreck that was really noisy and drove off at speed very quickly
00:32:21we identified that the man responsible was wrong more later on the Monday night it was established
00:32:30that Awan owned a black Lexus and it hadn't been accounted for so the decision was made to appeal to
00:32:37the public for sightings of that it was the number one question where is Raoul Moat we were relying on
00:32:49sightings by the members of the public to tell us where we should be looking I think there would be
00:32:58somebody would tell us why they're overtly or covertly and there was just nothing I think people were almost
00:33:06trying to second-guess what could happen next where could he go is there anywhere where somebody might
00:33:14harbour even you know dangerous criminal like this has he been receiving help from anybody else the silence was
00:33:24Stefan so where was he had he left the area I come in to do my shift at six o'clock on the Tuesday morning and then
00:33:42we get the call to say that the car has been sighted in Rothbury
00:33:51The woman had seen that car in a small market town about 30 miles north of Newcastle which was Rothbury in the heart of Northumberland
00:34:02There's also a bit of intelligence from a former girlfriend that he'd like to go camping in that area and had done as a younger man
00:34:09and that was the first big break the police had that that's where he might have gone to
00:34:13you could just feel how attractive Rothbury would have been to Raoul Moat
00:34:21Raoul Moat knew that landscape he was familiar with it he knew where to hide
00:34:28so of course from then on all the attention shifted to Rothbury the police descended on
00:34:35Rothbury in large numbers the media went to Rothbury in large numbers and suddenly the whole nature and
00:34:44focus of the investigation changed to this beautiful little rural town with a population of just over 2000
00:34:53on Tuesday the black Lexus was found in an industrial estate in Rothbury it was very quickly secured by our police officers
00:35:10the police helicopter was up there very quickly to scan the area and it quickly identified two
00:35:16males who were walking away from the vicinity of the car and at that stage it was two men
00:35:23was it victims was it hostages was it more
00:35:26well my name is peter blake and i'm the biological father of raoul thomas moat
00:35:47i just froze i thought that's my boy
00:36:17in 1972 i was working in annick in northumberland and then i met a young lady she was very attractive
00:36:33she had a lovely voice and a lovely laugh and we started going out together
00:36:40and then one day she said i'm pregnant and at that point she seemed very relaxed and happy
00:36:53but as the days went on the situation changed she became quite withdrawn
00:37:01and then one evening she said i don't want to see you anymore i said well what about the baby
00:37:13and she said it's my baby and i said it's my baby as well he needs a father and she said go away don't
00:37:22want to see you that's it finished well i felt terrible but it was apparent to me at that point
00:37:30that there was nothing i could do
00:37:36i hung around in newcastle for a couple of years hoping that the situation would change
00:37:43but it didn't and in the end i thought i've got to move away from this area
00:37:49and get on with my life which is what i did
00:37:54i never saw my little boy
00:37:58until i saw him on television and pictures of him in the newspapers
00:38:03it's strange really because it was lovely to hear his voice
00:38:17but on the other hand what he'd done and what he was proposing to do you know it was quite shocking
00:38:24i've always loved him you see i mean i i always knew that that i loved him he was my son and i loved him
00:38:35and uh it was very difficult you know knowing what he'd done but it didn't change the way i felt about him
00:38:44i remember we were monitoring this in live time from the downlink from the helicopter and we could see
00:38:57these two individuals we weren't sure who they were was it just two individuals who were totally
00:39:05innocent and coincidentally being there but you've got to remember one of these could have been ral
00:39:10moat with a gun who had threatened to shoot police officers so the helicopter was able to monitor
00:39:15them until such times as the appropriate firearms teams could get there
00:39:27the firearms team used distraction explosives to confuse them and arrest them safely so that if
00:39:44any of them were armed they wouldn't have been in a position to turn the gun on the police officers
00:39:49the message came back to me that it was ness and the wine we were able to interview them as quickly as
00:39:55in the back of the van and ask where's raul where is he ness was saying he hadn't seen him in days
00:40:04a wine was a bit more forthcoming and saying i saw him this morning and he's disappeared
00:40:12when they're both telling different stories it became pretty clear that they were actually
00:40:17more likely to have been associates and helped him and that's when i made the decision that we
00:40:22arrest him for conspiracy to murder and they stepped out of the hostage zone and into the suspect zone
00:40:32there was a degree of disappointment in that it wasn't more but by the same token it was the best
00:40:38break we'd had in terms of he's round about there somewhere
00:40:40there was a cordon put on the town of rothbury which was regulating who was coming and going there
00:40:50were police officers with dogs there were snipers there was a police helicopter there were hundreds
00:40:58you know they were everywhere there was this potential sighting in the school and calls getting
00:41:05made to put the school into lockdown and that would have been your worst nightmare is if you had got
00:41:11into the school
00:41:15i was head teacher of dr thompson church of england middle school in rothbury it's quite a small middle
00:41:20school um but big for for a rural area and it had around about 220 students in there
00:41:27rothbury is the kind of area that people don't tend to move away from it it's beautiful area it's got
00:41:34a fantastic supportive network real village type feel in there so the summer term was unfolding we'd
00:41:43had our sports day we were coming towards the end of term a normal july just like every other year
00:41:49on tuesday the 6th of july i arrived at school expecting a normal day then police arrived around
00:42:00the school and i remember one of the um police asking me to get the children away from the windows
00:42:06in the dining hall i think we all realized that moat was in the area what happens if he if there is
00:42:14a shootout what happens if he if he arrives at school nobody knew exactly what his his next move
00:42:21was going to be who he might target who he might attack and for a terrifying few hours there was a
00:42:26real concern that that we could have a another dumbling i still remember the feeling in the pit of
00:42:33my stomach of the fear of what events could unfold i remember being being frightened but wanting to remain
00:42:41calm and wanting to keep the school just as calm as we could by about two o'clock in the afternoon
00:42:48we realized that we weren't able to let the children go home so we've started to put the plans in place
00:42:53for a lockdown for the school we started to think further ahead about if we had to camp down for the
00:42:59night with the children in the school what we want to do we sort of put videos on for the children we
00:43:05let them play and started to communicate with parents that we would keep them up to date with
00:43:10information from the police system as we had it the thing that i remember most of all was this sort of
00:43:18double kind of existence that was going on that the rural town and people going about their
00:43:25everyday business with this massive manhunt i think it was one of the biggest manhunts in police history
00:43:32by the end of the day once the police had allowed some movement in the village it was around about
00:43:41seven eight o'clock at night that parents were allowed to come and collect the children and this
00:43:46is when you saw how stressful some of the children found it the minute they saw their parents you would
00:43:51see them burst into tears and parents hugged them and it was then a real awareness of actually how how
00:43:57intense it had been for the children as well when the accomplices had been arrested the police
00:44:05obviously then they've got now a this is a concrete lead he has been in that town then that's when
00:44:11the search widens and then very quickly after that they located the campsite it had been wrecked
00:44:18tent turned upside down the barbecue turned upside down and this is where we believed they had been
00:44:23staying for the last 48 hours or so they had been sitting there through the day it turns out that moat
00:44:32had been monitoring the media there was newspapers and there was a radio and listening to that but
00:44:39importantly there was a dictaphone a lengthy account ramblings lecture from moat about what he done
00:44:53and why he done it and the content of that dictaphone was listened to
00:45:01for every lie i see in that paper or any paper i'm gonna kill an innocent member of the public right
00:45:07i'm just gonna continue killing people it's as simple as that that was the first time that he had
00:45:17moved his focus from the police being under threat to the public being under threat it means that
00:45:23anybody's a target now and that again changed the whole level of risk for the operation
00:45:29the day after the dictaphone had been found we attended the daily briefing from the police
00:45:38but this day was different to all the previous days moat had now made threats to the press
00:45:44a bit of an alarm silence fell across the room could mort turn his gun on on one of us it got a whole lot
00:45:51more tense and dangerous because it felt like every single one of us the police the media the people in
00:46:00the town we were all potential targets it's a tricky situation to manage but the chief officer team were very
00:46:08clear in that we tell the truth to the public no secrets and they actually went out and did a number of
00:46:16briefings to the public about this threat so don't go wandering in areas that are isolated or maybe
00:46:25change your routine a wee bit maybe keep an eye on your kids all that sort of thing the big question
00:46:32that the pad was why haven't you caught them and uh trust me there was a number of sessions particularly
00:46:41towards the end of the week where we stood scratching our heads going where is he and the question was
00:46:47asked do you think he's got away
00:47:03there was probably a feeling that if you throw a blanket over rothbury will come
00:47:08but it would have to have been a big blanket it's a huge landscape with lots and lots of challenges
00:47:15for search for firearms for dog section
00:47:24moors woodland if you'd got the kind of determination that moat had you can make use of all these
00:47:33opportunities to hide we used the royal air force using flyovers and they can take imagery that was
00:47:44looking for any disturbance hides that sort of thing they used an ref jet with heat seeking equipment
00:47:50which incredibly rare for the police to sort of call on the military to help then in investigation
00:47:55and the other one was the search expert ray mears who's worked alongside
00:48:00the search teams that fall on the park through the wooded areas and the crags
00:48:10how is he surviving i mean you can't go very long without food and water before has a real effect
00:48:15on you so you must have been getting something from somewhere he kept moving from one spot to another
00:48:20to lay low but there were other times where he did seem to just go right into the town to apparently
00:48:31take vegetables from people's gardens people were saying that they had seen him there was other areas
00:48:37where he might have been seen farmhouses broken into was he hiding around about there so is it moat
00:48:43that's responsible is he looking for food is he looking for somewhere to sleep it's been a strange day
00:48:50i've been to the shops i'm now in a nice little park people walking past but on the island not one
00:48:56person has recognized us today when i've been out and about i was literally right on your nose you haven't
00:49:02got any puppies on the beat it's amazing how you're scurrying and hide when somebody fights back
00:49:13it's possible that raoul moat might have been enjoying the the cat and mouse game
00:49:21he must have thought that one way or another he was in charge not the police he was the one you know
00:49:31almost sort of moving the figures around the the board when you're looking for an armed man that says
00:49:39he's going to shoot people openly declares war on your force there was a degree of confidence that this
00:49:46was going to end up with a face-to-face confrontation
00:50:06can i stress to the public that moat is still at large and we need to locate him members of the
00:50:14public are advised to remain indoors and await further instructions
00:50:24the 24 7 operation of the command room was 12 hours on 12 hours off basically
00:50:31and i wrapped up and left and handed over to my colleague about
00:50:37six p.m on the friday and drove home i remember on the friday night getting home
00:50:47tally on browsing glass of wine and then seeing on the news that there was something heating up in
00:50:57rothbury again there was a knock at the door and it was my firearms tactical advisor
00:51:03who had run from the room to tell me he's been seen
00:51:10i was home probably 15 minutes and the telephone rang and it was my colleague to say
00:51:19we've got him and my first question is where is he rothbury
00:51:25relief we held our nerve we maintained our focus he was there i was taken very quickly to manage the
00:51:37scene on the spot on the ground and during that drive i remember thinking despite the amount of
00:51:43messages and radio traffic and phone calls that thank god we've got him at last
00:51:50i was watching television and all of a sudden there were pictures of raoul holding a gun to his head
00:52:02on the riverbank at rothbury we've now got some armed police officers pointing weapons at him and i've
00:52:10got all these resources running around to make sure that we've got everything else we need there's
00:52:15some police officers there with guns more has a gun more hates the police what's going to happen
00:52:21is he going to turn the gun on the police officers that that was clearly your concern
00:52:27he looked a bit disheveled as if he'd been living rough and you know whilst he was having
00:52:32some sort of dialogue with the the officers who were in front of him but he wasn't forthcoming
00:52:39he was you know very belligerent and dismissive the routine would be to negotiate with them to a
00:52:48surrender we would introduce train negotiating staff because the negotiation is about coming to a
00:52:56surrender safely they had a specialist negotiator there whose job it is to develop communication
00:53:05you know try no matter how difficult the situation to develop some kind of rapport almost with with the
00:53:16individual they wanted to take him alive they wanted people to be able to see that justice was done
00:53:25i knew what he'd done but my love for him overrode that i was his father and i just felt that
00:53:45i had to do something for my son i'd never done anything for him and i wanted to do something for him
00:53:53that was a very very powerful and strong feeling
00:54:00i thought that if i'm not there he might rush at the police and they might shoot him
00:54:12it's a really peaceful setting and there's no traffic going past because the road's cordoned
00:54:17off for safety it is manageable for the people trying to negotiate a surrender as possible they
00:54:23don't want distractions they don't want lots of things going off in the background they're going to
00:54:27cause any surprises otherwise things could go horribly wrong they were trying to give him reasons to
00:54:38to carry on living basically appeal to what they hoped would be his more human side remind him of his
00:54:48children let them not have to carry this knowledge and this memory for the rest of their lives
00:54:54he said at one point nobody cares about me
00:55:05which suggests that he kind of accepted that it was coming to an end for him
00:55:11i'm not going to be around in a few years right but the fact the bother is i'm not coming in a line
00:55:17you'll get your chance to kill us right you'll get your chance to kill us
00:55:20i felt utterly helpless you know there's nothing i could do what i would like to have done
00:55:32is for the police to have said your dad has come forward and he wants to speak to you
00:55:39i would have said to him i'm your dad we're in a bit of a mess here aren't we you know and
00:55:50i don't want you to die and i would like it now if you put an end to this and put the gun down
00:56:02you're not surrendering to the police you're surrendering to me your dad
00:56:09you know each and every friend family member would have been thoroughly risk assessed and a
00:56:16decision made whether they were suitable or unsuitable set depending on the circumstances
00:56:22given the situation he was in any sort of intermediary there would present quite a high risk
00:56:29it might have got to a stage where i think it was appropriate but it certainly wasn't at that stage
00:56:33there's a feeling of expectation that something was going to happen sooner or later that would
00:56:43close the story we didn't know what that was going to be this has gone on for hours and hours and hours
00:56:50and now we are planning for a worst case scenario we're thinking that if this isn't going to end
00:56:57peacefully it's going to end horribly
00:57:04so we're going to end up in a situation where the outcome can only be an arrest or the ending of his life
00:57:24the standoff had been going on for about six hours then shortly after 1am the police who were closest to
00:57:36him noticed a significant change in his demeanor he'd been lying down with a shotgun in his head and
00:57:42it becomes apparent that something's about to happen something's changed
00:57:46it's sort of agonizing because there you are you can see your son
00:57:54and six hours have gone by he's not handing himself in
00:57:59and then there was a shot and there was shouting
00:58:16i just heard the noise and we're all looking at each other thinking what what was that
00:58:32but it becomes apparent quite quickly that um he shot himself
00:58:39people tried to save his life whether they were firearms officers or whether it was the negotiators
00:58:45everybody there that night wanted to save his life
00:58:52and then they took him off in an ambulance and i thought well oh perhaps the gun didn't go off or
00:59:01perhaps you know he's still alive and i was hopeful but then when the ambulance arrived at the hospital
00:59:10the commentator said he said was covered with a blanket and i thought well that's it he's dead
00:59:20i watched him die on television
00:59:24and it was it was awful
00:59:26i was back at home with my family back at my parents house and watching the news
00:59:39it was kind of a bittersweet reaction to how it ended you know i wanted him to face justice for what
00:59:50he'd done but at the same time it was relief knowing that he couldn't harm anybody else
00:59:57what made the decision to turn the gun on himself and shoot himself and take
01:00:14in my view the coward's way out so that he didn't have to account for his behavior over the last week
01:00:21or 10 days by him ending it in the way he wanted to he remained in control if he'd have been arrested
01:00:30and put on trial he would have suffered a lot of control and i think that's one key factor about why
01:00:35he was he always intended it to end in a certain way and he achieved that i personally think he had no
01:00:42intentions of coming quietly i think he wanted to kill himself from the start because what was what was
01:00:48realistically going to happen to him he was going to prison forever and that's not a very positive
01:00:56outlook for anyone so his alternatives were very few and far between
01:01:03i just wanted to know why he did what he did
01:01:08what was his reasoning behind taking someone's life and trying to take somebody else's life
01:01:22samantha was the mother of one of his children and there's just something in my head that thing
01:01:30was like they can't comprehend what could make you want to to harm someone in that way
01:01:38when i went into work on the next morning i've got a couple of people in custody
01:01:50who are now looking at charges relating to the murder of christopher brown the attempted murder of
01:01:58samantha stobard and the attempted murder of david rathband carl ness and crumb are one always claimed
01:02:04that they were hostages not accomplishes they insisted they didn't help him
01:02:09ness hero worshipped moat to a certain extent and conducted surveillance on his estranged
01:02:17girlfriend while he was in prison ness had helped moat source the gun and then he'd taken him to the
01:02:23scene of the first shooting and there was text messages between ness and moe shortly before he carried
01:02:29out the shooting there was a cctv had to be looked at it showed that ness and moat basically did inquiries
01:02:41to try and find who christopher brown was and where he may work a one only came onto the scene after
01:02:48the burkeley shootings but played a full part in the shooting of david rathband and the robberies
01:02:55in the driving around also cctv showed ness and awan out in their own shopping without moat immediately
01:03:03after the burkeley shootings and they bought two mobile telephones they still had possession of one
01:03:09of them the other one was moats and significantly ral moat and ness went to b and q in newcastle
01:03:17and the court cctv buying a tent the evidence against the two of them was incontrovertible
01:03:27they were with ral moat at all the crucial elements of the offences and then stayed with him
01:03:32as he remained at large through the following days
01:03:43at court ness was told that he won't be considered for release until he'd served 40 years
01:03:59i think you've really got to remember that there were three victims three key victims here
01:04:17and we should never forget this for the families i hope that they get a crumb of comfort in the fact
01:04:23that there is people sitting in a prison serving a big sentence for the role that they played in that
01:04:30i want people to remember chris for the bubbly cheeky passionate man that he was
01:04:43he always tried to make people laugh he always wanted to
01:04:51make the best of any situation he was a great guy and it was a pleasure to have known him
01:05:02he was shot and blinded on duty today his attackers henchmen were convicted of his attempted murder
01:05:09i have a lifetime to live and they have a lifetime to reflect i'm sure i'm in a better place than them
01:05:17david lost his sight became a national figure focused himself on charity work
01:05:25but became quite troubled with everything that was going on and and his marriage broke down
01:05:30and i i really feel for the fact that one moment you're an able-bodied traffic cop
01:05:38doing the job you've always dreamed of and then suddenly you've lost your sight and you just can't
01:05:43do that job again whether you like it lump it and it's so sad that eventually david took his own life
01:05:50a couple of years after all this went on and let's not forget that ryle moat caused that deliberately he
01:05:56went out of his way to find a police officer that was david rathband and i think that's that really
01:06:06tells you exactly what sort of individual he was more of the choice he didn't have to do what he did he
01:06:14could have accepted the fact that his time with samantha was finished they had a child together he could
01:06:20have been a father to that child but now he's not ultimately the people who pull the trigger
01:06:27or wield the knife they have the choice the victims don't always have a choice
01:06:33and if you or someone you know has been affected by the issues covered tonight find information and
01:06:42support at channel 5.com slash helplines and for more insight into the minds and methods of police
01:06:49and perpetrator stream seasons one and two of a killer makes a call on five next tonight a transatlantic
01:06:56case in my lover my killer stay with us
Be the first to comment