After the drama and tragedy of the manhunt came the questions and recriminations.
The impact of gunman Raoul Moat’s crimes, and what followed, would leave a lasting legacy on countless lives and communities.
Moat sparked one of the UK's biggest ever manhunts in 2010 when he went on the run after shooting his ex Samantha Stobbart, 22, her new boyfriend Christopher Brown, 29, and Northumbria Police officer PC David Rathband, 42.
Read more: Dark mind of Raoul Moat revealed in chilling secret recordings he made before shootings
Christopher died instantly but Samantha survived. The gun attack left traffic cop PC Rathband blind and he took his own life almost two years later.
Moat remained at large for seven days before eventually turning his shotgun on himself, in Rothbury, Northumberland.
ITV viewers have been gripped as the dramatic manhunt is brought to life in new series, The Hunt for Raoul Moat, which started last night.
The three-part series lifts the lid on the police operation to find Moat and ends with his death.
But the real life Moat story did not finish with the murderer's demise.
In the immediate aftermath of the manhunt a number of key questions stood out, including:
- Why weren’t Samantha and Christopher made aware of information passed from the prison to police suggesting Moat could pose a risk to them?
- Why did it take Northumbria Police so long to locate and capture Moat after the shootings?
- Could PC David Rathband had been warned in time that Moat was at large and threatening to shoot police officers?
- Why did police fire a Taser at Moat as he lay holding a gun to his head during the stand-off in Rothbury?
- Did PC Rathband receive the right help and support after he was shot?
- Ultimately, could anything have been done differently that would have spared some of the tragedy and pain caused by Moat’s actions?
These questions and many more were addressed during inquests into the deaths of Moat, Christopher and PC Rathband, along with two Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) reports, and subsequently when PC Rathband’s family launched legal action against Northumbria Police.
During the search for Moat, Northumbria Police revealed that the force had been warned Moat might be planning to harm an ex partner by HMP Durham the day before the shootings.
The force referred itself to the police watchdog, which was then known as the IPCC.
An inquest into Christopher's death, in 2014, heard how Moat had confided in a fellow inmate that he intended to take revenge on all those he felt had wronged him, including his ex.
The prisoner passed a partial version of this conversation on to prison staff, who alerted police, but they did not know the name of Moat’s former partner.
Gateshead Coroner Terence Carney however ruled that Chris Brown was unlawfully killed by Raoul Moat and said the precise risk posed by gunman was not known.
But following the inquest, the then-head of the IPCC made a series of damning remarks about the force’s handling of the case.
Cindy Butts claimed that while they had not been guilty of misconduct, two officers in Northumbria Police’s Domestic Violence Unit were "reluctant" to act upon information received from HMP Durham about Moat's intention to harm a former girlfriend.
She said: “The officers finished their shift knowing that a woman may be at risk of assault. Considering the focus of the role filled by both the officers in the Domestic Violence Unit must be to provide reassurance and protection to vulnerable people, their failure to act on the intelligence is frankly unbelievable.”
However Steve Ashman, who was Northumbria Police's Deputy Chief Constable at the time, strongly refuted the claims and argued that Moat’s extreme actions could never have been predicted.
He said in 2014: "The person responsible for Christopher’s murder was Raoul Moat. There was nothing known to the police to predict his extreme actions. HM Coroner acknowledged that the actions of the police officers involved did not in any way cause or contribute to the death of Christopher Brown. It is therefore grossly unfair and inconsistent with the findings of HM Coroner for the IPCC Commissioner to suggest that officers were reluctant to act since the evidence before HM Coroner demonstrates the lengths those officers went to determine the identity of Moat’s intended victim.”
The IPCC also investigated the events surrounding Moat’s death in Rothbury. After the gunman died it was revealed that an unauthorised ‘XRep’ Taser, which can be discharged from a greater distance, had been fired at Moat before he killed himself.
The inquest into Moat’s death heard how police chiefs believed the Taser weaponry, never used before in the UK, offered the chance to bring in Moat alive. The IPCC cleared the force of any wrongdoing and the inquest jury returned a verdict of suicide, agreeing that Moat had intended to shoot himself.
Speaking on the tenth anniversary of the manhunt, retired Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson, who was in charge of the operation to find Moat, said: "The officers at the scene and in command had a horrendous task. We are in this to save lives, so in an effort to do that they discharged the XRep Taser, which hadn't been authorised. It was a bold decision but it was an attempt to save a life."
Whether more could have been done to stop PC David Rathband being shot, or to help him cope with his injuries, has also been subject to more than one examination.
In 2014, an inquest into his death concluded that the officer intended to take his own life and the coroner said no-one should blame themselves for his actions that night.
The inquest heard details of the support Northumbria Police had provided for PC Rathband after he was horrifically injured by Moat and the events immediately before he died.
The coroner was told how the 44-year-old's wife Kath had told him their marriage was over after she discovered his affair with a 7/7 bomb survivor.
In the days before his death, PC Rathband bombarded his wife with abusive phone calls in which he threatened to kill himself.
However, both his wife and police did not genuinely believe he would take his life. On the night of his death, Kath contacted PC Rathband's sister Debbie Essery saying she was worried about his welfare. Mrs Essery then sent a Facebook message to her brother's former family liaison officer.
The detective alerted her superior who told Northumbria Police's on-duty commanding officer that night.
It was decided that there was no immediate risk to PC Rathband's life, but that an officer he knew and trusted should be sent to his home to perform a "welfare check".
When police forced their way into the three-storey townhouse they found PC Rathband dead. The song 'When a Man Loves a Woman' was playing on his phone.
After the inquest, Mrs Essery said she and her brother, Darren, planned to continue with the legal action PC Rathband had started against Northumbria Police, relating to the fact that he was not warned of Moat's intentions to harm police officers.
Their case was thrown out by a judge in 2016. The family claimed the force’s failure to issue a warning to officers after Moat stated his intent to shoot police left PC Rathband a “sitting duck”. However, the judge ruled that even if a warning was issued it would have been unlikely to have made a difference.
On the night of the shooting, Moat spoke to a Northumbria Police call handler for almost five minutes, saying he would kill any officer who came near him, that he was not coming in alive and, at one point, that he was hunting for officers. He ended the call at 00.34 on July 4 and PC Rathband was shot at around 00.42.
Northumbria Police defended its actions that night, saying if commanders had rushed orders another serious incident could have occurred.
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