Officer relives being shot by Moat

Police officer David Rathband arrives with his wife Katherine and son Ash to give evidence in the Raoul Moat case
12 April 2012

The police officer who was blasted twice by shotgun maniac Raoul Moat has told how he played dead and then summoned the strength to raise the alarm despite suffering devastating injuries.

Pc David Rathband, 43, recalled being shot as he sat in his marked T5 Volvo traffic car, and told Newcastle Crown Court he knew exactly who it was behind the barrel of the gun.

The father-of-two, wearing his police uniform for the first time in public since he was almost killed last July, told the jury: "I realised that it was Raoul Moat who had approached the car and I can remember saying to myself 'Oh f*** - it's him'."

Moat was wanted for shooting his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, 22, and executing her new boyfriend Chris Brown the night before. Pc Rathband, who loved his job as a traffic officer, was on the look-out for Moat, and had already come across him in March over an uninsured vehicle and was already wary of the steroid-abuser.

Moat, 37, sneaked up on the officer who was parked on a roundabout at the junction of the A1 and A69 west of Newcastle. He blasted him once between the eyes, then again in the shoulder as the officer moved to raise the alarm.

The first shot was so loud inside the car that it felt like the noise was ripping his face, he told the court. He felt a sharp pain between his eyes and above the bridge of his nose.

"I knew I had been hit in the face and I knew my right eye had gone," he said. Another blast hit him on the left shoulder as he went to activate a mayday signal inside the car.

Pc Rathband said: "As I lay in the car, I realised I just had to lie there and literally play dead because it was quite clear Moat wanted me dead." Pc Rathband believed Moat was trying to execute him with the second shot.

He had somehow raised his left arm to protect himself, despite not hearing Moat move to shoot again. "He shot me in the middle of my eyes and the second shot was to finish me off," he told the jury.

Karl Ness, 26, and Qhuram Awan, 23, deny plotting to murder, attempted murder, robbery and having a gun. Ness also denies the murder of karate instructor Mr Brown, 29.

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