Police are facing further questions over their use of Tasers during the violent end to the stand-off with Raoul Moat.

One of the fugitive's friends brought in to speak to him during the tense negotiations said he thought the stun gun triggered Moat to shoot himself in the head.

Police finally caught up with the nightclub bouncer on a riverbank in Rothbury, Northumberland, on Friday night, beginning the six-hour siege with armed officers and police negotiators.

Moat's friend Anthony Wright, 34, told a Sunday newspaper: "They got me there too late. I could have talked him round. I'm sure those Tasers led to his death."

Moat, 37, blasted himself with a shotgun at around 1.15am on Saturday. He reportedly told officers: "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a cell."

On Saturday, police admitted that Tasers were used during the operation, but refused to answer any more questions. That has prompted speculation over what stage of the negotiations the Tasers were fired, what prompted their discharge, what effect they had on Moat and whether the use of the Tasers played any part in Moat's decision to pull the trigger on his gun.

A post-mortem examination gave the cause of Moat's death as gunshot wounds consistent with the weapon he was carrying.