Armed British police are continuing a search for suspected gunman Raoul Moat today after earlier detaining two men they had feared he was holding hostage.
Moat (37), a father-of-three, had been thought to have kidnapped the two men - a white man and an Asian man. However, the men, found walking in a village north of Newcastle today, were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.
Detectives said Moat was still at large, but a car he is believed to have been driving has been located in the village of Rothbury, where police set up an exclusion zone. Police had asked media for a news blackout on their hostage fears last night but that was lifted at a news conference this morning.
Detectives believed Moat may have kidnapped the two men after shooting his ex-partner and killing her new lover.
Moat is suspected of shooting his former girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart (22), and killing her boyfriend, Chris Brown (20), early on Saturday morning at her mother's home in Gateshead, shortly after he was released from jail. He then allegedly shot and critically injured PC David Rathband (42), as he sat in a patrol car a few miles away at East Denton, Newcastle.
In a series of taunts to police in a letter and telephone calls, Moat boasted of kidnapping. A 49-page hand-written letter, purportedly by Moat, to Northumbria police and published by the Sun newspaper today suggested he was pursuing a vendetta against the force.
"Last night I called 999 and declared war on Northumbria Police before shooting an officer on the West End A69 roundabout in his T5 (patrol car)," the letter said. "The public need not fear me but the police should as I won't stop till I'm dead."
Officers earlier surrounded a house in Gateshead as part of their operation, according to media reports.
Det Chief Supt Neil Adamson, who is leading the manhunt, made another direct appeal to Moat today. “Mr Moat, I have a further message for you. I have made a number of requests to you to contact police and hand yourself in. That opportunity still exists.
“Please remember what I have said to you before. Do not leave your children with distressing memories of their father. You still have a future. Give yourself up now.”
Mr Adamson revealed police had been dealing with a “complex, fast-moving and challenging hostage situation”.
The senior detective said: “At an early stage it was believed Mr Moat may have taken two hostages around the time of the shooting in Birtley. We have been dealing with this matter in accordance with national guidelines in relation to kidnap. Throughout this time there has been a significant risk to the lives of the two men."
Moat’s former girlfriend Yvette Foreman (35) said Moat, who locals said had been living in a makeshift camp, could survive for days undetected in the countryside surrounding Rothbury.
The waitress said Moat knew the Rothbury countryside well. “I knew he’d come here. It’s his favourite place in the whole world. We’d go camping and fishing here loads when we were younger, almost every weekend, and he knows the woods and hills like the back of his hand.
“It was not until I showed the local police his old letters that they took me seriously." The letters, which the police took from Miss Foreman, reveal a glimpse of Moat’s volatile personality. One contained a violent fantasy in which he described plans to batter a rival with a baseball bat.
Agencies