Raoul Moat’s uncle begged police to see him

Jul 11 2010 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

THE uncle of gunman Raoul Moat begged police to see him and bring him in alive, hours before he turned a gun on himself.

The former bouncer – on the run from police for a week – was pronounced dead early yesterday after shooting himself, following a six-hour stand-off with police and snipers in Rothbury, Northumberland.

While the country breathed a sigh of relief that the biggest manhunt in living history had finally come to an end, his uncle Charles Alexander told of his devastation that his nephew had not handed himself over to police.

He said: “I just can’t believe it has come to this. I was praying he would hand himself in.

“He had no chance. There is nothing Raoul could do. It was like the guillotine in the French Revolution. People standing around gawping at his death.

“What he has done is terrible, but he didn’t deserve death. I just wish that police had let me go to him.

“When he was speaking with the negotiator he was saying how he didn’t have a father and had nobody left.

“I’m the closest thing he’s got to a father – I could have been that father to him.

“I rang the police at 11pm to ask them to take me to him as I knew I could make a difference. They brought one of his friends in but he was upset about family - it was family he needed. I have to go and identify his body in time.

“What is most upsetting is that now we’ll never know why, and what made him crack.”

Northumbria Police demanded a news blackout about Moat’s private life last week, after Moat threatened to harm or kill a member of the public for every piece of inaccurate information published in the media about him.

But we can now tell how he was raised by his grandmother after his mum, Josephine Healey, gave him away.