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When Raoul Moat shot my twin in face he blew family apart – but cops could have stopped tragedy after chilling warning
WHEN former prisoner Raoul Moat shot PC David Rathband in the face, he not only blinded the traffic cop but also blew apart his family life – and effectively triggered his death.
It is 15 years since the crazed gunman went on a shooting spree, wounding his ex, murdering her new partner and sparking a week-long manhunt across the north of England.
After issuing a threat to the police that he would kill an officer, Moat crept up on PC Rathband’s parked patrol car on the outskirts of Newcastle and blasted him at close range.
From that moment, traumatised David’s life fell apart, and just 20 months later — after his wife Kath walked out on their 20-year marriage — he took his own life.
In the aftermath of his death in 2012 at the age of only 44, his family were barely speaking to each other.
But on the 15th anniversary of the shootings, PC Rathband’s twin brother Darren exclusively revealed to The Sun how he is now in contact with David’s 26-year-old daughter Mia.
He said: “Every day without David is a s**t day, so an anniversary isn’t something to celebrate.
“But thankfully I’ve just started talking to Mia again.
“It’s beautiful — she’s had a little boy, Ronnie, who looks the spit of my brother, and when I spoke to her she said, ‘Come here, somebody’s on the phone’.
“He came on and looked at me and went, ‘Oh Grandad!’.
“I started crying and Mia started crying.
“Three weeks later, she rang me again and said, ‘Just hold on a minute, somebody wants to meet you’.
“Mia turned the camera away to her lap and there was a little baby, a week old.
Chilling warning
“I hate getting really emotional — I’m a typical bloke.
“You just put it to the back of your mind and try to get on with it.
“It’s been 15 years and it’s still raw.
“But I knew Mia would always reach out.
“She told me, ‘You’re the closest thing I’ve got of my father — I need to ask you some questions’.
“She said, ‘I’m really struggling to remember things about my dad because I was 13 at the time’.
“I said, ‘Ring me and you can ask me anything — any questions.
“I’ll tell you the truth, I’m really grateful that we are in touch again’.”
To Darren, David will always be his big brother, although they were born just two minutes apart.
They were inseparable while growing up in Staffordshire, where they both later joined the police.
David moved to Northumberland, while Darren emigrated to South Australia, where he served with the force in Adelaide.
It was the release of Moat from Durham Prison on July 1, 2010, after he had served an 18-week sentence for assault, that led to the terrible chain of consequences for David.
Two days after he got out, Moat shot and wounded his former girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, then killed her new partner Chris Brown, who Moat wrongly believed was a policeman.
Moat then sent a chilling warning to the Northumbria force that he was “hunting down police”.
The force did not issue a warning to its officers, and PC Rathband, who should not have been on duty that night, was blasted with a sawn-off shotgun by Moat, who had crept up to his car parked in the Newcastle suburb of Denton Burn.
Nearly a week later, the net was closing on Moat following an occasionally bizarre search that involved TV survival expert Ray Mears and former footballer Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne, who claimed he knew Moat and offered to take him “chicken and lager” in an attempt to convince him to surrender.
After a six-hour stand-off with police, Moat shot himself dead near the market town of Rothbury.
Darren, 56, said: “Honestly, if they set what happened to music it would be the Keystone Cops.
“They didn’t put out a warning to officers there was a man out to kill police.
“Chief Constable Sue Sim held a public meeting in Rothbury with the door wide open while a madman with a gun was on the loose.
“And they walked Ray Mears in, dressed in a sergeant’s uniform.
“Then the fiasco with Gazza turning up with a fishing rod and cans of beer, wanting to talk to Moat.”
Darren believes not enough was done for David in the aftermath of the shooting.
He said: “David got shot square in the face.
“He was seen as a hero, he had survived with a bit of pride.
“But Northumbria Police breached their own human resources welfare policy because they were supposed to give him counselling.
“They were supposed to get him to return to work, but they never did any of it.”
After David had travelled to Australia to visit Darren, he returned home in February 2012 and hanged himself at his home in Blyth.
Darren said: “I was surprised he lived as long as he did.
“I knew eventually he would take his own life.
“I’m proud of him because he made the decision, not Raoul Moat.
“He decided he’d had enough.
“He couldn’t deal with being blind and he had the strength of character, because it [suicide] is hard.”
Poignantly, Darren also spoke about having his own suicidal thoughts.
He said: “I’ve thought about it every day since he died and I haven’t done it, because I can’t do it.”
Wrong place at wrong time
And Darren believes that if David had received proper aftercare, he would still be here to enjoy life with his grandchildren.
He said: “David should have had counselling from the time it happened.
“Anyone injured in the line of duty should be sent to a medical professional without delay to assess if they have PTSD.
“Police officers never ask for help because, if they do, they’re made to feel like a leper.
“If they made it mandatory, then that stigma about mental health gets taken away because everybody has to go.”
When David was in Australia, he told his brother that all he wanted was to be able to “book off” the shift — the customary end to an officer’s work period — which he had never completed because of Moat.
So after his death, Darren planned to book David off shift at Newcastle’s Etal Lane police station as his coffin was being carried to a memorial service at the city’s cathedral.
But Darren says he was told he could not go inside the station, so instead he officially booked Tango Charlie 190 — PC Rathband — off shift in the car park.
He said: “I also asked the Chief Constable in one of our meetings, ‘Can you posthumously make him Sergeant, because he’d qualified for the promotion?’. That never happened.”
During our 90-minute conversation, I accidentally called Darren by his late brother’s name.
But when I apologised profusely, he said: “You aren’t the first and hopefully you won’t be the last.
“People calling me David is a tonic, it’s just like he’s still here.
“I don’t want people to forget him.”
Now Darren is backing a drive, the 999 Injured And Forgotten campaign, to create a medal for the thousands of other emergency service personnel who have been discharged from service due to injury in the line of duty.
He said: “David survived being shot in the face and if he had decided to live and left the force because of his injuries, he would not have got a medal to show he’d served.
“There are more than 16,000 other police officers who, when they have had to leave through injury, don’t even get a certificate.
“The only way you get a medal is if you die in the line of duty and you receive the new Elizabeth Emblem.
Every day without David is a s**t day, so an anniversary isn’t something to celebrate. But thankfully I’ve just started talking to Mia again. It’s beautiful Darren Rathband
“Or if you display bravery, you will get a medal for gallantry, like the George Cross.
“But if you are injured on duty and you don’t complete enough years for a long-service medal, you don’t get any recognition.
“Nobody would ever know that you’ve ever done any service.
“There’s nothing for officers like David, who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He added: “My dream is to get a medal for David and give it to Mia’s children.”
CALL TO HONOUR HEROES
MORE than 240 MPs have backed the 999 Injured And Forgotten campaign to award a medal to former police officers and other emergency services staff badly injured while on duty.
Tomorrow, nearly 30 wounded police officers will attend a rally outside Parliament calling for a Commons debate on the issue.
Former Sussex detective Tom Curry, 75, is leading the campaign.
He says: “In 2017, PC Kris Aves was mown down on Westminster Bridge along with 49 other people by the terrorist who went on to kill PC Keith Palmer.
“PC Palmer was rightly honoured with the George Medal for bravery.
“Had PC Aves died, he would have got the Elizabeth Emblem, but because he survived, even though he is paralysed, he gets nothing.
“Billy Burns is a brave officer who tackled a bank robber who was carrying a high-calibre weapon.
“PC Burns was shot in the mouth, but he hasn’t got anything to show that he was ever a copper.
“In 1983, an IRA bomb planted outside Harrods killed three police officers and injured 14.
“The three who were killed get the Elizabeth Emblem, but Pam White was one of those who survived.
“At the age of 24, she suffered life-changing injuries and had to leave the force. She has nothing to show she was a copper.
“More than 40 years later, she sees three officers get a posthumous award and it adds insult to injury. How do you think she feels now? She feels worthless.
“This is an injustice that needs to be put right.”
