Gunman Raoul Moat, who evaded capture for a week after shooting his ex-girlfriend and murdering her lover, has killed himself following a dramatic six-hour stand off with armed police.

Raoul Moat, 37, shot himself in the head despite attempts by police negotiators to persuade him to give himself up.

The stand off began when Moat was spotted on the riverbank in Rothbury, Northumbria, on Friday night.

There was speculation he may have been hiding in a drainage channel just a few hundred yards from where his abandoned car was found.

An eyewitness said the tense siege came to a climax when police surrounded the former nightclub doorman and jumped on him.

A single gunshot was heard before the fugitive, who has evaded one of Britain’s biggest manhunts for a week, was taken by ambulance to Newcastle General Hospital.

On arrival he was taken from the ambulance on a stretcher with a blanket covering his head, but he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Northumbria Police said: “Police can now confirm that Raoul Thomas Moat, 37, of Newcastle, died in hospital early this morning.

“It followed several hours of negotiations between Moat and police but at around 1.15am it appears, from information available, Moat shot himself. He was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead at around 2.20am.

“No officers or members of the public were injured.”

Susan Ballantyne, whose house overlooks the scene of the stand-off, said police had crowded around Moat and pounced.

Another witness, who lives near the river bank where Moat was holed-up, said he heard him telling negotiators: “Nobody cares about me.”

Moat’s death brings to an end a huge manhunt involving police officers from 15 forces, Scotland Yard sharpshooters and armoured 4x4 cars.

An RAF Tornado was also deployed to use wartime technology in a bid to find the gunman.

The drama began at around 7.20pm on Friday when police responded to reports Moat was on the riverside at Rothbury - 30 miles north of Newcastle.

Officers warned people to stay indoors for their own safety as they surrounded the fugitive who residents said was lying on the ground with a sawn-off shotgun pointed at his head.

As the siege wore on Moat apparently allowed police to bring him food and water.

But at about 1.15am, with heavy rain pouring down, officers apparently attempted to wrestle Moat to the ground.

It was at this point the 17-stone steroid addict shot himself.

Chief Superintendent Mark Dennett of Northumbria Police said: “Police discovered a man fitting the description of Raoul Thomas Moat at around 7pm near the riverbank in the vicinity of Rothbury.

“When he was discovered he was armed. Expert negotiators were brought in to speak to him and spoke to him extensively for several hours.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/c...d-off.html

This has been VERY big news over here in the UK.

Amazing how someone with a history of violence gets sentenced to 4 months in prison for assault and is out after serving only 2.

He then gets a gun, shoots his ex-girlfriend, shoots a policeman, and kills his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend.

We are too soft on criminals, but at least now he won't be shooting anyone else.

Raoul Moat deserves some pity

Facebook group shows a lot of people can identify with the actions of a man labelled a 'callous murderer'

Gateshead shootings Tributes left outside the house where Raoul Moat lived in Fenham. Photograph: Rod Minchin/PA

Now that you mention it, prime minister, I did have a twinge of sympathy for Raoul Moat the other day. Two, actually, though I didn't post them on Facebook.

As you say, he did horrible things out of self-pitying and uncontrolled anger, but no one likes to see a human being hunted in that way.

Clearly Moat was dangerous and had to be captured – one murder and two life-threatening attacks, one of which cost PC David Rathband his sight – but the scale and media-frenzied tone of the police hunt made me uncomfortable.

Then there was that 47-page letter he wrote, the one the newspapers printed at length. No father that he knew of, at odds with his mother, estranged from his kids and the girlfriend he had abused but decided was the one for him, it was a mess.

But Moat came across as an intelligent man trying to make sense of life without the right tools at his disposal and an unhelpful dose of paranoia.

I imagine a lot of people can identify with much of that – mainly misogynistic men by the sound of it – and that's why they left flowers at the spot where he died and left messages which I have no desire to read on Facebook, a 30,000-strong tribute group, according to the Mail's account: "RIP Raoul Moat, You Legend".

Not nice and the usual suspects rushed to demand that Facebook take down the page. At PMQs yesterday, where I thought David Cameron sounded in need of his holiday, the Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris wound the boss up.

It prompted Cameron's "callous murderer, full stop, end of story" reply which so offended Tanya Gold in today's Guardian. Watching in the press gallery I thought, "that's tomorrow's splash story in the Daily Mail". And so it was. Us regular readers know our product and one thing we know is that the Mail's impassioned defence of good old British liberty is a highly selective one (though it's not alone in that).

But the Mail – and Cameron – miss the point of Facebook and the wider online community, much as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did when they encouraged voters to run campaigns on the No 10 site to change the law. What did they expect? Flower arranging classes?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/...y-facebook