The former girlfriend of killer Raoul Moat described today the “five minutes of hell” as he blasted her and her new boyfriend with a shotgun.

Police officers hunting for Raoul Moat were “excited” by the arrival of new Tasers just hours before they entered a stand-off with the fugitive gunman, it was reported today.

Witness Paula Mason said her mother could see British fugitive Raoul Moat sitting with a gun pointed to his head outside her house in the town of Rothbury in Northumbria this evening.