Search continues for fugitive gunman

THE HUNT by British police for fugitive Raoul Moat, who has killed one person and wounded two more and is believed to be hiding out in Northumberland, continued late last night, amid fears the search could end in a shoot-out. Moat has threatened to kill as many police officers as he can.

Last night, some residents of Rothbury, north of Newcastle, were housed in a school, while police continued to comb the village and surrounding forests for the nightclub bouncer, who wounded his ex-girlfriend, killed her new partner and then shot a traffic policeman on Saturday – two days after he had been released from jail.

People travelling home to Rothbury from work were searched at police checkpoints before being allowed on their way. Earlier, locals were instructed to stay indoors, while children in two schools were locked in under guard by armed officers. Last night, armed officers were patrolling the streets of the village.

The police hunt moved north into Northumberland after a man answering Moat’s description robbed a fish and chip shop in Seaton Delaval, a village 10 miles north of Newcastle, before 11pm on Monday.

The shop workers were threatened with a gun. The robber escaped with a small amount of money.

The search for Moat was centred on Rothbury after his parked Lexus car was spotted. Later it emerged that he had spent many weeks camping in the local woods with a former girlfriend, local woman Yvette Foreman, when he was in his 20s. Ms Foreman said yesterday she believed he could survive for days because he “knows the area like the back of his hand”.

“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. I’m so shocked at what he’s done. I feel so sorry for that police officer. It just seems so very wildly out of character for him,” she said.

Two Rothbury schools were circled by armed police, who turned everyone away, including parents, until after 4pm yesterday.

One 12-year-old said: “It was just like a normal day, although we weren’t allowed out. We knew what was going on but the teachers kept us calm.”

But one 10-year-old girl said she and friends had been in tears and were really scared during the day.

Locals were also told to stay inside their homes. Walkers coming down from the surrounding Simonside Hills were escorted back to their cars and allowed to leave the district after police had searched their cars.

Police feared a repeat of last month’s mass killing in Cumbria by taxi driver Derrick Bird.

Yesterday afternoon, Det Chief Supt Neil Adamson said they had believed for several days that Moat had taken two hostages. However, it then emerged they had arrested the two men they feared had been kidnapped, having found them walking on the road near Rothbury, and were questioning them on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

Moat was released from Durham jail last Thursday, following a short sentence for the assault of his daughter. He denied that he had assaulted her in a rambling 49-page statement given to a friend and published by the Sunnewspaper.

He was prevented from having access to his children, Sam and Chanel – a daughter by Samantha Stobbart, the woman he shot on Saturday.

In a Facebook message written shortly after his release, Moat said: “Just got out of jail, I’ve lost everything, my business, my property and to top it all off my lass of six years has gone off with the copper that sent me down. I’m not 21 and I can’t rebuild my life. Watch and see what happens.” The man he is reported to have killed, Chris Brown, was not a policeman.