The woman who set up a Facebook page calling Raoul Moat a "legend" has claimed she bitterly regrets it, although she still feels sympathy for the gunman.

Siobhan O'Dowd, from Burnley, said she feared being attacked for publishing the tribute site.

"I just put it for me and my friends," she said. "I didn't think this would happen. I want to get across to people that I don't condone what he has done and don't agree one little bit about him shooting people.

"I just I genuinely felt sorry for him because he asked for help but didn't get it. He felt his whole life had been taken away from him. He was in jail and his girlfriend writes to him and says she is seeing someone else he had kids with her and was in love with her.

"I genuinely felt sorry for him and am not the only person who did feel sorry for him either."

The 21-year-old added: "I feel sorry for the families because it was an awful thing that he did."

Miss O'Dowd, who has a three-year-old daughter, said she too disliked the police. "I'm not a huge fan of the police because I know what it is like to be harassed by them." she said.

She continued: "I don't condone anything he did. I do not agree with him shooting anyone. I feel sorry for the policeman that has been left blind because at the end of the day it must be the most horrible thing ever. He has got two kids that are going to be upset for years to come with what has happened to their dad."

Miss O'Dowd directed some blame towards Moat's former girlfriend, Sam Stobbart, 23, who told him her new boyfriend was a policeman.

"The lad who got shot, that was horrible but if she hadn't have said he was a police officer it would not have happened," she claimed. "Yes she was scared of him but she should not have written him a letter. Because of her that lad has lost his life really."

She tried to justify calling him a legend and said: "I thought him hiding from the police was legendary. He did make the coppers look stupid and that is why a lot of people respected him. And that's why people are classing him as a legend.

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