Raoul Moat: Britain's most wanted man in police gun sights

SURROUNDED by armed police, with a gun held to his own head, the week-long hunt for fugitive gunman Raoul Moat ended last night just a few hundred yards from where police found his getaway car three days earlier.

• Moat lies on the ground last night after being cornered. Locals said he was pointing a gun at his own neck and head, but appeared calm. Picture: Getty

Expert negotiators were called in to talk to the 37-year-old, who is wanted in connection with three shootings in north-east England last weekend, as the search for Britain's most-wanted man reached a dramatic endgame on the banks of a river in Rothbury, Northumberland.

Moat was surrounded by police snipers, with dozens more officers at the scene, as eyewitness said that the former nightclub doorman was holding a gun to his neck.

His friend Tony Laidler was escorted into the police cordon as discussions continued into the night and a 10-mile air exclusion zone was enforced over Rothbury.

Rothbury residents had earlier looked on as armed police chased the gunman through streets until he reached the river and had nowhere else to run. Two police vehicles were involved in a collision as they rushed to the riverside.

After an exhaustive search of countryside surrounding Rothbury, Moat was finally cornered just after 7pm at a drain a few hundred yards upstream from where a black Lexus car he is believed to have used was found on Tuesday.

Locals suspected Moat had been hiding in the newly-enlarged culvert, which runs under the centre of Rothbury and into the river near where he was cornered. A man fitting his description was seen in the area on Thursday night.

Police spokesman Peter Abiston said Moat was lying on the ground holding a gun under his chin while negotiators spoke to him.

He said: "He's holding what appears to be a shotgun under his chin. He was lying down up until about five minutes ago. He's just sat up."

Moat had his back to the river and armed police aimed guns at him from around 20ft.

Mr Abiston added: "He looks very calm. It looks as though the police clearly have it under control."

As the stand-off continued into the night and police continued to stream into the area, food and water was delivered to the gunman.

Watching events unfold on television at home in Gateshead, his uncle, Charlie Alexander, 72, offered to help.

He said: "Raoul would listen to me. I have my shoes on ready if they want me to talk to him."

Negotiation expert Dr James Alvarez said Moat was more likely to give himself up the longer the stand-off went on.

"One of the things that's against him at this time is that he will eventually need to sleep, but there's lots of police to take it in turns so they have the upper hand," he said.

"People have natural body rhythms, the darker it gets the more people will want to go to sleep. The tendency will be for him to wind down.

"He's probably already tired and worn-down and hungry. He will need a shower, that sort of thing. And psychologically he's probably quite weak."

Paula Mason said her mother could see Moat sitting with a gun pointed to his head outside her house.

Mrs Mason said her mother was "terrified" as she was trapped in her home inside the police exclusion zone.

"She said a marksman told her to get in with a gun," she said. "I just spoke to her on the phone. She's absolutely terrified, she's on her own."

She added that her mother was not being allowed to leave her home and was "absolutely petrified".

"She said he is sitting with a gun to his head. The police are surrounding him."

Mountain biker Ben Storey was cycling when he inadvertently stumbled across the police operation as he rode across a bridge near the river in an area known as The Steppies.

"There were about 10 armed officers and they all had their guns pointed at one man," the 19-year-old builder said.

"I couldn't see the guy but all the cops had their guns pointed at him. And you could tell he was right down at the river."

The dramatic scenes in the small Northumberland town followed the news that detectives were pursuing "valuable" new leads a week into the investigation after recovering three mobile phones used by Moat during his time on the run.

Experts said the devices could contain a goldmine of information about the former nightclub doorman, including details about his calls, texts, contacts and even his former location.

The first of the three handsets was found in Birtley in the early hours of Saturday – at the scene where Moat's ex-lover Samantha Stobbart, 22, was shot and her new boyfriend, Chris Brown, 29, killed.

A second phone, used to make two 999 calls to police before and after 42-year-old PC David Rathband was shot early on Sunday, was also recovered, but police would not say from where or when.

The third was spotted by a member of the public in the Rothbury area.

Police said it had not been used by the gunman since two alleged hostages, Karl Ness and Qhuram Awan, were found on Tuesday. Both have since appeared in court charged with conspiracy to murder.

Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson, spearheading one of the biggest manhunts in living memory, said before the stand-off that the past 24 hours had provided "some very positive developments".

Temporary Chief Constable Sue Sim previously told a packed public meeting that Moat was unlikely to be "walking down the street with a gun", in a bid to reassure the community.

Armed police also swooped on a stately home on the outskirts of Rothbury yesterday as the round-the-clock search continued.

Cragside House, which lies on the outskirts of the village, was closed to the public as dozens of officers with dogs swarmed around the property, guarding the entrances.

Police also revealed they had arrested a man and a woman on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Two other men arrested have been released on bail after being questioned.

Amid raised tensions yesterday, armed police guarded schools in Rothbury at the request of concerned parents in the local area.

The move came after police said Moat posed a threat to the "wider public", and not just police officers.

Hundreds of police officers from 15 forces across the UK, many of them marksmen and sniffer dog handlers, were involved in the hunt.

No figures are available yet but the vast scale of the manhunt means the final bill is likely to be significantly higher than the 3.2 million spent on the 24-day search for schoolgirl Shannon Matthews.

A Tornado jet was seen flying over Rothbury yesterday as police used imaging equipment to bolster the search.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that the jet was sent to the area yesterday after police requested "specific air-surveillance support".

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