Raoul Moat’s brother criticises police stand-off tactics

Moat inquest told family should have been involved, and hear that gunman had previously attempted suicide Raoul Moat’s elder brother told an inquest he believes police made a mistake in not allowing him to speak to the fugitive gunman during a stand-off in which he died. Within days of Moat’s release from Durham prison in July last year, he shot and injured 22-year-old Samantha Stobbart, the mother of his child, and killed her new boyfriend, 29-year-old Chris Brown. He also shot and blinded PC David Rathband, an unarmed officer sitting in a patrol car. Moat had been on the run for a week before the six-hour stand-off with officers in Rothbury, Northumberland, in which he died. He shot himself after he was twice Tasered by police. Officers used an untested XREP Taser that had not been approved by the Home Office. On the second day of the inquest in Newcastle on Tuesday, Angus Moat, a 41-year-old tax officer who has a different birth father but the same mother as the 37-year-old bouncer, said he had spoken to a senior officer about becoming a third party intervener alongside the police negotiators. He admitted he had not spoken to his brother for seven or eight years, as they had drifted apart. Angus Moat suggested police should have thrown Raoul a mobile telephone if he was not able to speak face-to-face. He said he “should have been involved” in attempts to “talk Raoul down”. Angus Moat said during the week his brother was on the run, their mother had spoken to the press and said Raoul would be better off dead, but he had not agreed. He described their mother as “severely mentally ill and incapable of being a parent”, as he said she had bipolar disorder. When asked during the inquest at Newcastle crown court if his brother could have been similarly afflicted, he replied: “Most definitely. I think he had an undiagnosed case of bipolar brought on by stress, being in prison, losing his business and his home.” He said his brother had attempted suicide in 1999 by taking a drug overdose and had been treated in hospital. Asked by John Beggs, a barrister acting for Northumbria police, if his comments stemmed from the fact that Raoul Moat did not have any close contact with family members over seven or eight years, he said: “It is a factor, but not principally.” He told the inquest jury: “I’d have told him to think of his kids. “Raoul thought everybody in his own family was against him and I wanted to show him that was not the case. “I thought if I could speak to him it could change the way he was feeling and the way he would act. I thought the presence of some of his family members might change things.” He said Raoul responded to aggression and threat, “but he also responded to kindness and friendship”. He added: “I thought it could potentially be the end of my brother’s life and I did not want that to happen. I knew he would be in a lot of trouble but I did not want him to die. My view was that going to prison for the rest of his life would be better than death.” The inquest earlier heard the gunman had said he would “take the shoot-out” rather than go back to jail. He left a message on a dictating machine three or four days before he was cornered by police marksmen. In the message, he described losing the only two people who mattered to him – his grandmother and his former girlfriend, Stobbart. He said: “Just take the shoot-out and everybody’s happy.” Superintendent Jim Napier of Northumbria police, in charge of the criminal investigation into Moat’s rampage, said the message had affected the way in which the stand-off was handled. “It is a personal disappointment I never got to see Mr Moat account for his crimes,” he told the hearing. The inquest had heard that while in prison, Moat had warned Stobbart he would “go crazy” after she ended the relationship. Police say this was the catalyst for his murderous rampage. The 11 members of the jury will focus on the events on 9 and 10 July, when Moat was found. There will be questions about weapons used, how police managed the incident, how officers dealt with the dead man and how he acted, the jury was told. Among the questions to be addressed are whether the XREP Taser should have been deployed. The hearing continues. Raoul Moat Police Crime Gun crime Helen Carter guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 6, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.