Secret tapes recorded by murderer Raoul Moat in the months before his gun rampage give a chilling insight into the killer's crazed mind.
The Newcastle doorman became one of Britain's most infamous fugitives 13 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 was cornered by armed police in Rothbury where he took his own life.
In the days after he died, the Chronicle 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.
The search for Moat has now been brought to life on television in the new ITV drama, The Hunt for Raoul Moat.
And after the first episode aired last night we can once again give a chilling glimpse into Moat's crazed world, through his own words.
The taped ramblings reveal:
-Moat's paranoid obsession that Northumbria Police was trying to stitch him up, which would eventually lead to him declaring war on the force and shooting traffic officer PC David Rathband in the face with a shotgun.
-How Moat claimed a rival once tried to shoot him for sleeping with his wife
-The gunman's claims he was "living on the edge" before the shootings.
In one conversation, Moat accused police of making up death threats against him so he would buy a gun to protect himself.
Moat recorded conversations between himself and a detective who contacted him to say she had received information that someone had threatened to hurt him.
But the deluded father, who at the time was on bail for assault, accused the female officer of lying, saying she was trying to stir up trouble between him and his enemies so he would snap and land himself in jail.
In a secretly recorded phone call with the detective from Etal Lane CID, Moat says: "Are you trying to provoke me to get a firearm and make me schizo?
“I think it’s a deliberate attempt to get me wound up. It’s part of the hunting season on Mr Moat by Northumbria Police.”
He also asks if he should have a panic button fitted at his Fenham home because of threats against him.
Moat made his hatred for the police clear during the seven days he was on the run.
It was during the early hours of July 3, 2010, that the 37-year-old arrived in Birtley, Gateshead, with a sawn-off shotgun and blasted his ex-girlfriend 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 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.
Moat wore a hidden wire every time he visited Etal Lane Police Station after being arrested on suspicion of assaulting a child. He also taped telephone conversations with officers.
Each recording reveals the extent of his paranoia and the way his twisted mind convinced him the police were out to get him.
On October 12, 2009, he recorded a meeting with a detective. Before entering Etal Lane Police Station he speaks into his mic, saying: “I have just had two CID at the door trying to work their ticket in some way. I’ll sharp find out what it’s about.”
On arriving in the station Moat, who had left his job as a doorman to become a tree surgeon says: “What have I done this time?”
But the female detective tells him that police have received information that suggests someone has threatened to hurt him.
“Is this an anonymous phone call or something?” he asks. “Am I looking at getting potshots or is it just funny divvies?
“Am I looking at petrol through the letterbox? If we are looking at knives or guns its something I have to consider.
“It’s not gonna be fisty-cuffs because then the only one that’ll come a cropper is them.
“I’m not as young as I used to be and I’m not as quick as I used to be. I might get it this time.
“I have been sat in that house. I haven’t been up to anything. For a man who cuts trees, I seem to be getting into a lot of trouble.”
And in a phone call several days later, Moat tells the detective that he only knows of two individuals who he has a rift with.
He goes on to accuse the woman of trying to goad him into attacking one of these people to make it easier for police to convict him of the assault charge hanging over him.
“You are holding back and not telling us something,” he said. “You might as well have not told us you would have been better off not telling us. You see this has got the possibility of flaring something up.
“I think this is a deliberate attempt to get me wound up.”
The detective refutes Moat’s claims, saying she was simply trying to warn him that threats had been made against him and that she had no more specific information to give him.
But Moat then suggests that the officer is trying to encourage him to buy a weapon, and ignores her when she says this is not the case at all.
“How would you advise me to protect myself under the vague circumstances?” he continues.
“Without giving us a nod nod wink wink and carry something with us at all times?
“I’m not the kind for carrying weapons, I don’t do that, but I have not been anything I can work on.
“It’s not like I drink locally where I could upset somebody. I haven’t had much of a life recently."
In another conversation with police recorded by Moat the gunman reveals how he had been shot at himself before his rampage.
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, Mr Trimmit.
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."
The agitation is clear in Moat's voice has he reveals he is living his life "on the edge" in recordings made just months before his shooting spree.
Tapes recorded by the murderer, in January 2010, as he awaited trial on an assault charge reveal his growing frustration with the way his life is going.
In one taped conversation Moat's rage is clear in his voice as he tells of his anger at having criminal charges hanging over him.
He says: "This is what I talk about with my counsellor. The carrot in front of the nose that's always being taken away.
"There's no light at the end of the tunnel, because when I get there it gets put back and put back and I'm living my life on the edge, just trying to get by this next thing, then there's another one, and another one, and another one. None of this is right"
After being accused of intimidating an official, Moat explains in another conversation why he tapes everything and reveals his paranoid belief that those in authority are out to get him.
He says: "I have kept these deliberately to go to the Chronicle. What would have happened if I had not recorded these conversations? I would have been knackered wouldn't I?
"It would have been another official person and I would have been called a liar. I have had to back myself up.
"I want to know why these people are going all out to get me. What is their problem with me? This evidence here, if it's swept under the carpet I'm going straight to the Chronicle because I've had it."
And Moat's paranoia is more evident in another extract in which the dad reveals that he knows which local venues have CCTV as they are the places he prefers to meet people.
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