The detective who led the police manhunt for crazed gun killer Raoul Moat has slammed people who ‘worshipped’ him ahead of a new ITV drama about the case.
Moat, 37, sparked one of the largest manhunts in UK history when he killed his ex-girlfriend’s lover before shooting her and a police officer in Rothbury, Northumberland, in July 2010.
A three-part series called The Hunt for Raoul Moat, airing on ITV later this month, will recall the notorious search for the shotgun-wielding brute.
But former detective chief superintendent Neil Adamson, the ex-head of Northumbria CID, said the gunman was a ‘controlling and deranged misogynistic bully’ and addressed the support he received from some 30,000 people who liked a Facebook page named ‘RIP Raoul Moat You Legend’.
He added: ‘The vast majority of the public were on our side and the local community was fantastic.
Former detective chief superintendent Neil Adamson, the ex-head of Northumbria CID, says the series should focus on the victims and not the shotgun-wielding killer
A three-part series called The Hunt for Raoul Moat will air on ITV later this month. Pictured: Matt Stokoe as Moat
Moat, 37, sparked one of the largest manhunts in UK history when he killed his ex-girlfriend’s lover before shooting her and a police officer
‘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?’
Adamson will feature in the drama, played by Lee Ingleby, whom he held lengthy talks with about his experiences prior to filming.
He told Radio Times that, although he is not critical of the series, he queried the decision to focus on Moat over his ‘poor individual victims’.
The former police chief, who retired seven years ago, said: ‘I flew down to London a couple of times during the investigation to see Christopher’s mother and she was incredibly dignified. I’ll never forget visiting David in hospital, his determination to recover and move on.
‘But I always thought it would be dramatised, because it was an exceptional event – the biggest manhunt in policing history, over a full week, that engaged the whole country.’
Moat launched his terrifying campaign of violence on July 3, 2010, following his release from an 18-week jail sentence for assault two days earlier.
He arrived at the home of his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart’s mother’s house with a sawn-off shotgun after she claimed she had entered into an affair with a police officer in an attempt to keep him away.
But this fuelled his rage and hatred for the law, leading to Moat blaming the police for his life falling apart.
Moat then killed her new boyfriend, karate instructor Chris Brown, outside before shooting his ex-girlfriend in the stomach through a window before fleeing the property in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
He had been waiting for an hour for his moment to strike, texting his accomplice Karl Ness who was parked up nearby.
But Ness fled the scene, leaving Moat stranded.
Images of notorious gunman Raoul Moat, who died in 2010 following a shooting spree in which he killed Chris Brown
Police officers negotiate with fugitive Moat shortly before his death. It was an extraordinary manhunt that ended with the crazed gunman shooting himself in the head after a tense six-hour stand-off with armed police
He then went on to declare ‘war’ on the police, shooting and blinding an unarmed traffic officer PC David Rathband in a senseless attack. The officer later took his own life following his injuries.
Moat’s attacks triggered a £1.4million manhunt, involving 160 armed officers – with the town of Rothbury in Northumberland placed on lockdown.
The thug was eventually cornered by armed police before a six-hour stand-off began – during which footballer Paul Gascoigne famously turned up at the site of the police stand-off with a fishing rod and chicken dinner to try and talk ‘Moaty’ round.
As negotiators attempted to get Moat to put down his weapon, the crazed killer shot himself in the head at 1.10am on July 10. Moments before, he had been tasered by officers, who had attempted to stop him from taking his own life.
Speaking last week, Moat’s daughter said she fears the new ITV drama will ‘bring the horror back’.
Katelaine Fitzpatrick, 24, fears that she will be haunted by the dark memory of her father.
Ms Fitzpatrick has said that the manhunt against her father led to her being ‘so badly bullied’ that she is too scared to send her own children to school.
Raoul Moat’s daughter Katelaine Fitzpatrick (pictured with mother as a child) says a new ITV drama about the crazed gun killer will ‘bring the horror back’
Gazza’s arrival at the police stand-off holding a loaf of tiger bread, lager, chicken and a fishing rod after convincing himself Moat was his ‘brother’ during a cocaine bender was a bizarre twist in the July 2010 Northumberland manhunt
She told The Sun: ‘This TV series is going to bring the horror back. For many it will just be a crime drama on telly, but for me and his victims, and the family of his victims, this is our life.
‘He was a monster. He ruined so many lives and I don’t think it will ever stop affecting my life.’
The drama’s screenwriter Kevin Sampson said the series was relevant due to an ongoing debate over toxic masculinity, The Times reports.
He said: ‘My interest was there from the start in a slightly vicarious way, 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.
‘Chris Brown’s family felt he had been forgotten and didn’t want him to be simply the guy who Raoul Moat shot.
‘They wanted his memory honoured in an appropriate way, which is why we spend the first part of the drama telling a really simple story about two people falling in love, before that hope is taken away from them in the most brutal circumstances imaginable.’
