Ray Mears has told the 'real story' of the part he played in helping to track down fugitive gunman Raoul Moat and the massive risk it carried.
On Tuesday night, ITV's The Hunt for Raoul Moat came to an end, with the third and final episode of the true crime drama focusing on the latter stages of the huge police operation to find killer Moat in July 10, with the man hunt coming to an nd with a stand off Rothbury, a week after he killed Christopher Brown, the new boyfriend of ex Samantha Stobbart, before shooting and blinding PC David Rathband.
After the shootings, Moat, aided by two accomplices, headed to Northumberland, evading detection for a number of days. His accomplices were caught by police, as a discarded tent belonging to Moat was found in woodland in Rothbury and, behind the scenes, TV survival expert Ray offered his expertise to help find the killer.
Ray's involvement in the search will be documented in the Man Hunt documentary, which will air of ITV on Wednesday night. And, ahead of the programme going out to millions, Ray appeared as a guest on Good Morning Britain to explain just what he did to aid the police search nearly 13 years ago.
Revealing the tactics he used to try and find Moat, Ray said: "There was no real starting point as the obvious starting point was his camp site, which had been opened up to the press on the Wednesday morning, so everything had been obliterated.
"I had to work on the tiniest of marks...broken twigs, dislodged marks; tiny little things, but you can tell from their conditions, how long ago, within reason, those marks were made and I started to find exactly that evidence."
Ray was asked by GMB host Martin Lewis if traces of Moat in the woodland were easy to identify because 'no-one else would normally go there?' and it was then that Mears revealed the high risk of getting too close to Moat and possibly coming face to face with him.
He added: "Nobody in their right mind would have gone into the areas we were within that time frame. To do so, would have been suicide, because he was there, he was in the area. Nobody in their right mind would have gone into these areas."
During his investigations, Ray found evidence of Moat collecting firewood, makeshift beds being made and an area of land where it became obvious that someone had been lying; but he said the most 'significant' breakthrough was a trail of bracken where human footprints were found.
*Sign up to get the latest TV and showbiz news straight to your inbox with the Chronicle TV and celebs newsletter. If you can't see the form below, click HERE
READ NEXT:
