Ex-doorman no stranger to shootings
TAPES by notorious gunman Raoul Moat revealed how he had been shot at himself before his rampage.
The Newcastle doorman became one of Britain’s most infamous fugitives 10 years ago when he went on the run after shooting his ex-girlfriend, her new partner and a police officer.
After a seven-day manhunt Moat, 37, was cornered by armed police in Rothbury where he took his own life.
In the days after he died, we obtained more than 50 hours of secret recordings made by Moat in the run-up to the shootings.
So deep was the bodybuilder’s paranoia, he used a secret microphone to record everything from telephone calls to police to meetings with social workers, and even family outings with his children.
Now we can give another chilling insight into the killer’s crazed world, through his own words.
During one taped conversation with police Moat, from Fenham, Newcastle, tells how he himself had been a victim of gun crime during his time working on the doors.
And ironically, he says a man tried to shoot him for sleeping with his wife.
He said: “I have been shot at three times before over the period of the time I was on the doors and to be honest with you you never know where it’s come from. One of the guys we did get a hold of, it was something to do with his wife. I had been sleeping with his wife.”
However, in another telephone conversation with a police officer he recorded, Moat reveals how he had been living a virtually reclusive life since he stopped working as a bouncer and set up his own tree surgery business.
Although he admits to lashing out at a man in Gateshead after his dog was involved in a fight a couple of months earlier.
He said: “For the last four and a half years I have been off the doors and I have brought my kids up and I haven’t got up to anything.
“I’m a tree surgeon now. I have got my own company and I don’t have time to even mix in the local bars. I never go out, I never do anything. I’m pretty much like a recluse with my kids nowadays.”
It was during the early hours of July 3, 2010, that Moat arrived in Birtley, Gateshead, with a sawn-off shotgun and blasted his ex Samantha Stobbart, 22, and killed her new partner Chris Brown, 29.
Less than 24 hours later he made a phone call to Northumbria Police declaring he intended to target police officers before creeping up on 42-year-old traffic officer PC David Rathband, and shooting him through the window of his patrol car.
The attack left PC Rathband blind and he took his own life in 2012.