Moat brother criticises police over stand-off

Angus Moat today criticised British police officers for refusing to allow him to talk to his younger brother Raoul during a tense six-hour stand-off with police which ended with his apparent suicide.

Mr Moat, who said he had not seen his brother “for a number of years”, saw on the television news that police had cornered him on Friday after a six-day manhunt.

Moat was wanted for shooting his ex-girlfriend Sam Stobbart, killing her new boyfriend Chris Brown and seriously injuring Pc David Rathband last weekend.

His older brother told Sky News he immediately contacted police and told them: “You’ve got to get me up there. I’ve got to go and speak to my brother.”

He said Northumbria Police rebuffed his offer and were apparently concerned that it might unlock memories which would exacerbate the situation.

“Since then I’ve seen footage of him in his last hours and he was a broken man, he’s crying about his lack of family, that he’s got no father, that nobody loves him. There were loads of people that loved him,” Mr Moat said.

Moat’s uncle Charlie Alexander also offered to go and reason with his nephew but said police did not get back to him.

Mr Moat said: “If the police are so keen to get this defused and they want to talk him down and negotiate and his family are figuring so prominently in what he is saying, then why didn’t they go for that option?”

Mr Moat said he loved his brother dearly although his actions had been "horrendous" and felt powerless as he watched the "horror story" unfold on Friday evening.

“As it was getting dark I thought: ’It’s all hotting up’. The media aren’t helping. You’ve got this constant round-the-clock rolling news. It’s like, you know, they’re working up to what could be a public execution in modern Britain of my little brother.”

Mr Moat told Sky News that when he heard a shot he hoped a police sniper had injured his brother and that he would be sedated and taken to hospital for treatment.

“He’s obviously under a lot of stress, psychological pressure,” he said.

“You know this is my brother who’s not a psycho killer like some of the press have been suggesting. He was a person, he’s a brother, he’s a son, he’s a father. He’s a man who’s had a nervous breakdown.”

Mr Moat said he watched as his brother was taken by ambulance to Newcastle General Hospital, still hoping he was still alive, but then saw him being carried inside with a blanket covering his face.

“I’m thinking they don’t cover a live person with a blanket, especially one who maybe has serious head injuries or something. I was just devastated.”

He said he now understands his brother was dead at the scene soon after the shot was fired and added: “I think I’m probably the only person who’s ever watched his brother die on national television in the UK, which is obviously horrific.”