The man who led the hunt for Raoul Moat has hit out at the “hero worship” of the killer.
Neil Adamson, the former head of Northumbria CID, described Moat as a “controlling and deranged misogynistic bully”.
Former nightclub bouncer Moat, 37, made headlines around the world when he eluded capture for six days while on the run in July, 2010. He shot and seriously wounded his former girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, then 22.
And he killed her new partner Christopher Brown, 29, falsely believing he was a police officer.
Hours later, Moat shot and blinded PC David Rathband. Moat, who had just been released from prison, eventually killed himself after a six-hour standoff with police.
Tragically, Pc Rathband killed himself 18 months later. The manhunt, which is the subject of a three-part ITV drama starting on Sunday, was the biggest of its kind in UK history.
Dad-of-two Neil, 57, who led that police operation, involving hundreds of officers, said: “I flew down to London a couple of times during the investigation to see Christopher’s mother and she was incredibly dignified.
“The vast majority of the public were on our side and the local community was fantastic. The hero worship was absolutely bizarre, because the series shows how controlling and deranged he was, a misogynistic bully.
“Samantha was 16 when 31-year-old Moat met her. He dominated her and had to know everything about her.
“How can anybody be in awe of an individual like that?”
Survival expert Ray Mears was deployed to track down Moat. Paul Gascoigne turned up in Rothbury, Northumberland, to persuade Moat to give himself up.
Neil is played by the actor Lee Ingleby in ITV’s three-parter. Lee was DS John Bacchus in the popular BBC show ‘Inspector George Gently’.
Kevin Sampson, the screenwriter of The Hunt for Raoul Moat, said that the drama was about toxic masculinity.
It makes only a brief reference to Gascoigne’s intervention. Instead, it shows Moat’s crazed self-justification for his crimes and his victims.
Sampson also told the Radio Times: “My interest was there from the start, but I wasn’t really aware of the detail.
“Then, ten years on, we were in lockdown with issues like the malign presence of social media, fake news and toxic masculinity, alongside an escalation in incidents of domestic violence.
“All these things really coalesced with this case.”
* The Hunt for Raoul Moat will be on ITV on April 16, 17 and 18, followed by a documentary on April 19.
