Raoul Moat’s Long-lost Father Says Not Contacting His Son Before He Went On A Shooting Spree Was The ‘biggest Mistake Of His Life’

The father of a man who went on a shooting spree that left one dead and two seriously injured has revealed his heartbreaking regret in a new documentary.

Raoul Moat killed one person and wounded two others before managing to evade the police for days by camping out in the Northumbrian countryside in 2010.

Before going on the run after his two-day rampage, the 37-year-old bodybuilder had been released from Durham Prison on July 1, having served an 18-week sentence for assaulting a nine-year-old child.

After he embarked on the violent shooting spree, which ended in a six-hour police stand-off, Moat shot himself. He was rushed to Newcastle General Hospital and was pronounced dead by doctors.

Speaking in an upcoming Prime Video documentary, Raoul Moat: Inside the Mind of a Killer, his father – who had a distant relationship with him – recalled the day of his funeral and guilt for never reaching out to his son.

Peter Blake said: ‘We went up for the funeral and I went into the church and I couldn’t believe it. It was packed and people started coming up to me. I was told when he got to 18 years old age, he demanded to know who his father was and his mother wouldn’t tell him anything.

‘I got this in my mind (and thought) “Wait for him to come to you” and it never occurred to me that he couldn’t.

‘But if I had contacted him when he was 18, I think I could’ve turned his life around. It never happened and that was a massive mistake. Probably the biggest of my life.’

Peter split from Moat’s mother when she was pregnant and never met his son.

It is claimed that his final words before taking his own life were: ‘I’ve no dad, no one cares about me.’

While in prison, his girlfriend Samantha, who is 15 years his junior and mother to his daughter Chanel, told him that she had a new partner, Chris Brown.

Knowing Moat has a violent temper, Samantha tried to protect them by saying that Chris was a policeman.

Moat wrote on Facebook: ‘Gonna lose my home and lost my Mrs of nearly 6 years to a copper. Like they haven’t f****d my life enough over the years. I’ve lost everything… watch and see what happens.’

Two days after he came out of jail, he went to his ex-girlfriend Samantha’s house in Birtley, Gateshead, when she was with Chris and shot the couple.

He killed the 29-year-old karate instructor and wounded Samantha. She was rushed to hospital in a critical state before being discharged 12 days later.

Less than 24 hours after shooting Samantha and Chris, the gunman crept up on unarmed PC David Rathband as he sat in his patrol car by a roundabout in Newcastle.

The 37-year-old former nightclub bouncer shot the father-of-two twice in the face. In March 2009 PC Rathband had interviewed Moat under caution in the back of his police car for driving a van that was uninsured to carry scrap metal.

The officer was left blinded for life after the attack and took his own life two years later, aged 44.

After killing one person, leaving one person with life-changing injuries and another in a critical state, Moat went on the run for a week, assisted by two accomplices.

Northumbria Police organised a mass manhunt which included 160 armed officers and was thought to cost £1.4 million, putting the town of Rothbury, Northumberland, on lockdown. Moat was later located by a riverbank before killing himself.

Samantha’s sister, Kelly Stobbart, also recalled his manipulative ways and how she views them today – before explaining that his violent nature became clear from early on.

‘I believe he has split personality… he could be a nice person, but he could also be a horrible person,’ she told the documentary.

‘When Samantha first met Raoul, she was a good hairdresser. It must‘ve been tough because she gave up her hairdressing job, and all of a sudden, she was just in the house all the time.

Samantha was just 15 when she first met the head bouncer at Newcastle’s Liquid & Envy club. A year later, the pair began a relationship when he was almost twice her age at 31.

Kelly continued ‘Raoul was keeping her away from people. I don’t believe she had any friends when she was with him.

‘I remember at one point, they had a disagreement, and he had slapped her or something, and she wanted out, she wanted breathing space, so she had come to mine.

‘And that’s when the phone calls started. It was non-stop, like every time she’d put the phone down, he would ring again.

‘One time when Sam was with my nana, he went to my nanas, and he had a gun. He threatened her with a gun. It showed me what he was capable of doing.

She concluded, ‘I think the only way she broke free from him was when he ended up going to prison.’

Samantha had spent six years with Moat before he gunned her down.

Describing the horror in court in 2011, Ms Stobbart said: ‘It all happened so quickly. Chris walked in front of me. Raoul then shot him. Chris went down on to the grass. Raoul was shouting. He then went to point the gun at my legs.

‘I ran back to the house. I couldn’t see anybody. I was panicking because my daughter was upstairs. I couldn’t find the keys (to lock the door).

‘Jackie was hiding in the kitchen, Karl was hiding in the bathroom and my mum was upstairs.

‘She had the children and was getting them in the loft. I looked out of the window and it was done.

‘I just remember Chris slouch down on to his knees and then from what I remember I got shot. I didn’t fall to the ground straight away. It took 20 seconds and then I just collapsed. I remember blood pumping out of my arm and my chest.’

She claimed doctors said that she ‘would have died’ if her arm had not blocked the shot, according to reports at the time.

The shotgun cartridge penetrated her left arm and entered her abdomen. Samantha was rushed to the nearby Queen Elizabeth hospital in Gateshead, where she was left fighting for her life.

On July 5, 2010, she was declared to no longer be in a critical condition following the attack, and left hospital on July 17.

On the same day, she issued a direct appeal to Moat, who was in hiding having gone on the run. She said: ‘Please give yourself up. If you still loved me and our baby you would not be doing this.’

Raoul Moat: Inside the Mind of a Killer explores how Moat’s troubled upbringing and how actions continue to impact the community today.

Raoul Moat: Inside the Mind of a Killer is available on Prime Video UK & IE from 12th October.