As true crime drama The Hunt For Raoul Moat airs next week, Closer speaks to his daughter, Katelaine Fitzpatrick, about the horrific memories of a past she’d rather forget…
Katelaine Fitzpatrick was just 11 when she watched on TV as police launched a manhunt for her father – 37-year-old Raoul Moat, who was on the run after going on a shooting spree.
Moat had just been released from prison in July 2010 when he shot his ex-girlfriend, her new partner and a police officer. After hearing about what he’d done, Katelaine and her mum Caroline feared for their lives.
Now, as a new TV series sets to air about the infamous hunt for Raoul Moat, the gunman’s daughter says it brings back haunting memories of her evil dad.
Mum-of-two Katelaine, 24, says, “For millions of people the show will be entertainment but, for me, and his victims, this is our reality. Some twisted people even see Raoul Moat as a hero and a legend. But how can he be when he has caused so much misery? He wasn’t a hero, he was a monster. He ruined so many lives.”
MANHUNT
The three-part prime time drama, The Hunt For Raoul Moat, will follow how the cold-blooded killer led officers on one of the biggest manhunts in UK history.
In the early hours of 3 July 2010, Moat – who’d been released from jail two days earlier after serving a short sentence for common assault – hunted down his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart. He found her outside a friend’s house and, motivated by fury and jealousy that she’d ended their relationship, shot Samantha’s new boyfriend, Chris Brown, three times, killing him, before turning his gun on Samantha, shooting her in the stomach and leaving her fighting for her life.
He then made a menacing phone call to the police before shooting patrol officer PC David Rathband, who was on duty at a roundabout.
PC Rathband was taken to hospital in a critical condition. Both he and Samantha survived, but PC Rathband was left blinded and traumatised by the attack, and tragically killed himself 18 months later.
STAND-OFF
Moat, played by Matt Stokoe in the ITV series, went on the run for nearly a week, taunting police with phone messages threatening that he was hunting them down.
Police eventually tracked him down to the village of Rothbury in Northumberland. During the stand-off, things took a bizarre turn when football legend Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne turned up wanting to speak to Moat – despite not knowing him. Later he revealed that he thought he “could have saved him”. Escorted by officers, Katelaine and her mum fled to Birmingham to stay with family, as they were terrified that they were on Moat’s hit list. Katelaine says, “I couldn’t believe this evil man they wer
