Fifteen years on from the tense standoff with Raoul Moat, who was wielding an illegal sawn-off shotgun, two firearms officers from West Yorkshire Police have broken their silence about his erratic behaviour and the fraught final hours leading to his capture.

The former Newcastle-upon-Tyne doorman, 37, had just been released from prison after serving time for assaulting his nine year old daughter. While incarcerated, he discovered that his ex-partner Samantha Stobbart, mother of his youngest child, had begun a relationship with Chris Brown – whom Moat wrongly assumed to be an undercover cop.

Moat's disturbing Facebook message upon his release revealed his troubled mindset. He posted: "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 someone else. I'm not 21 and I can't rebuild my life. Watch and see what happens."

In the days that followed, Moat took to Facebook to taunt Northumbria Police while embarking on a chilling cat-and-mouse chase. This began with his violent rampage on July 3, 2010, where he hunted down Samantha and her new partner Chris, a 29 year old karate teacher, at a residence they were visiting.

Moat shot Samantha through the living room window, striking her in the stomach and arm, after lurking beneath it for an hour and a half. Chris stepped outside to face him, only to be met with lethal shots to the head from Moat, who then made his escape, as reported by the Mirror.

At that time, Adam Twigg and Damian Sharp were serving as firearms officers with West Yorkshire Police, providing armed protection for Samantha while she recuperated from surgery in the hospital. Less than a day after committing his first murder, Moat shot PC David Rathband in the face while he was seated in his patrol car.

Mere minutes before the assault, Moat had phoned the police to announce his deadly intentions.

Following the attack, Moat rang again, this time to voice his frustration that the police were "not taking me seriously", showing a chilling lack of remorse. He then vanished into the wilderness, ending up in Rothbury, Northumberland, where he subsisted on dead mice and grew increasingly delusional.

Despite a 160-strong police task force, led by survival expert Ray Mears, Moat evaded capture for days. Adam and Damian were later deployed on active search duty, their mission: to find the shotgun wielded by the fugitive.

By that stage, Moat had left behind signs of his fugitive lifestyle, including a rudimentary camp in Rothbury and a dictaphone filled with hours of diatribes aimed at the police. In a harrowing disclosure, he also declared on the recording his intent to escalate his murderous rampage, proclaiming: "For every lie I see in that paper, any paper, I will kill an innocent member of the public."

Adam recounted a particular occasion when they were assigned to inspect a cemetery after a groundskeeper stumbled upon some unsettled soil in a section where no one had been interred for many years. Adam recounted: "One of the jobs we got was to go and investigate a graveyard where a groundsperson had come across some disturbed earth and had not buried anybody in this particular area for decades. So we got sent up there with a shovel."

Damian reflected on the incident, surmising: "Knowing what I know now, I think he'd put his gun there but he'd removed it again before we got there."

After a fruitless search, the pair made their way to a nearby bakery where the proprietor had offered them leftover goodies at the end of their shift. Damian recalled: "We're in there with all this kit on, and I'm driving the ARV [armed-response vehicle].

"Twiggy's in the passenger seat and I tell him we'll head down the road and turn right, near the river. I take a big bite of a cream bun and all the cream flops down the front of my vest. Just then I look up and there he is, standing with the shotgun in his hand."

Adam recounts the bizarre sight of an elderly couple walking backwards along the riverbank.

"As I'm looking along the riverbank, I clock this elderly couple who are walking backwards," he narrates.

He goes on to say that they had also spotted Moat, but luckily, Moat was absorbed in looking at the river and didn't notice them or the approaching officers.

The tense confrontation with Moat remains a stark memory for both officers. Damian vividly recalls: "He turned around, pointed the gun at us as we're getting out of the car with our G36s [assault rifles used by police], then turned the gun to his ear."

Damian emphasises his concern for the safety of those nearby above all else. He states: "I'm thinking, 'just don't involve the elderly couple', because that's when we would have had to shoot him first."

Adam, adept at interpreting body language, felt that Moat was no longer a threat to anyone but himself. He observes: "I saw he had his thumb inside of the trigger guard," suggesting that Moat couldn't aim at them without changing his grip.

As Moat distanced himself, still pressing the gun against his head, Adam remembers: "He couldn't bring his gun to bear without changing his hand position. We started shouting at him to put the weapon down, but he just walked off sideways, holding the gun to his head."

During a tense six-hour standoff, armed officers kept their guns trained on Moat as he spewed hatred towards the police and expressed regret for not having killed PC Rathband. He also unleashed his anger about his family, who he believed had abandoned him.

The already fraught atmosphere intensified when negotiators arrived to attempt to calm the situation, but the scene took an even more surreal turn when none other than football legend Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne appeared, bizarrely offering Moat "chicken and lager" in a bid to coax him into surrendering. Gazza later admitted that he was under the influence at the time, mistakenly believing Moat to be a friend.

As the evening wore on, the stand-off with Moat became increasingly volatile. "The vibe I got from him was that he would never surrender, and as time went on he was getting more desperate," Adam recounted.

"Eventually he changed the position of the weapon at the side of his head, at which point two colleagues fired the XRep Taser [a long-range Taser that operates without wires] at him, and then he pulled the trigger and shot himself in the head."

Following the tragic conclusion, Moat was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead, leaving a trail of victims devastated by his violent spree.

In a poignant aftermath, PC Rathband, who had been gravely wounded by Moat, tragically ended his own life 18 months later. His daughter continued his legacy by running blindfolded with the Olympic torch during the 2012 London Games, in a moving tribute to her father.

The 15-day inquest into Moat's death concluded it was suicide, while an Independent Police Complaints Commission review determined no foul play on the part of the police, even with the use of an untested XRep X12 Taser moments before Moat's tragic final act.

In 2023, Chantelle Moat spoke candidly to the Mirror about her harrowing childhood experiences with her father, whom she branded a 'monster'. She recalled episodes of his savage punishments and the terrifying moment when he murdered her pet dog directly outside her bedroom.

"My father has always been a monster. That is all I have ever known him as. When I was young, there was no monster under my bed – he slept next door to me," she disclosed, voicing her revulsion at the posthumous praise her father garnered, describing it as "sickening".

She continued: "We were better off with him dead. I don't mourn him. I mourn the dad I should have had."