'David just wanted to be remembered' says friend of PC Rathband shot by Raoul Moat

A radio host and author who helped the police officer shot by Raoul Moat write a book has been speaking about the gunman's impact on his life.

Tony Horne worked for Metro Radio in 2010 at the time of one of Britain's biggest manhunts. He later formed a friendship with PC David Rathband, who was shot and blinded by Moat as he waited in his patrol car in Newcastle's West End.

PC Rathband took his own life 20 months after he was shot.

Mr Horne told ITV Tyne Tees Mr Rathband had struggled with "mental fatigue" after the incident and had told him that he "just wanted to be remembered".

He was speaking after the first part of ITV drama The Hunt for Raoul Moat aired last night, which he defended the company's right to make.

He said the incident had a "massive" impact on his life and that PC Rathband had struggled with dark thoughts, nightmares and flashbacks in the aftermath of the traumatic events.

When asked about how the former police officer would want to be remembered, the author said: "I'll go to words of David's.

"David would just want to be remembered. He said to me: 'people will go back to their jobs and I will be forgotten, and I would just like to be remembered.

"David would just want to be remembered."

Mr Horne said the police officer was "picking pellets" from his body until the day he died.

The first episode of the drama series, which aired on Sunday 16 April, made reference to how Moat loaded his shotgun with pellets to specifically cause more damage to his victims.

Mr Horne said: "David said to me: 'until the day I die, I will have Raoul Moat's DNA in my body'.

"What people forget is David arrested him in 2009. He said to me there were only ever two people he took home with him - one was Moat. That was partly due to the physicality of him.

"The impact Moat had was there even before any of this happened," Mr Horne said.

Mr Horne is hoping to release The Rathband Tapes in the coming days, to allow people to hear Mr Rathband narrating his own story.

Kevin Sampson, the writer behind The Hunt for Raoul Moat, said he wanted to tell the story from the perspective of the victims, while executive producer, Jake Lushington, said he hoped the drama would "do service to the victims".

The makers have faced criticism that the production company should not be making entertainment out of the tragic events.

Mr Lushington said he hoped the drama was "a huge antidote" to the "dangerous cult of personality" which has surrounded Moat.

Before the drama aired, he said: “Some people say it’s too soon to tell this story. Again, that’s a very subjective point of view.

"For some people, something that happened in 1960 is too soon. Who’s the arbiter of that? In this case, there are some dodgy ‘folklore’ perceptions about these events. I think 13 years is enough time to have some distance from it. Although obviously not for the people affected by it. We can’t avoid that."

What did Raoul Moat do?

Moat had been released from Durham prison in 2010 where he had been serving a sentence for assault.

Days later he shot and injured his ex-partner Samantha Stobbart, as well as shooting and killing her partner Chris Brown, a karate instructor in Gateshead.

He went on to shoot PC David Rathband and was on the run for a week, sparking one of Britain's biggest manhunts.

The 37-year-old was spotted in the small town of Rothbury, Northumberland. People there were told to lock their doors and stay inside, due to the safety risk Moat posed to the public.

Eventually Moat appeared on the bank of the River Coquet and had a six-hour stand-off with police, during which former footballer Paul Gascoigne turned up in an attempt to talk to him.

Police fired a taser at Moat in the hope they could bring him back to life, but the former bouncer shot himself in the head and died at the scene.

ITV's North of England reporter at the time Emma Murphy covered the manhunt.

She told us how she saw Moat face to face on the streets of Rothbury after News at Ten.

"We'd just finished the programme and I heard all the sirens. I went to run up the road to the B&B to get my car keys," she said.

"I saw a guy walking towards me. He had a very straight arm, and as I got closer, I thought: 'he must have had an awful week, he looks like Raoul Moat.

"We were by the chip shop, but it was shut. I thought: 'what am I going to do?'

"I nodded and said 'evening' and he said nothing and he just walked straight past me.

"I rang my colleague to say he was walking to the SAT truck where all the journalists were with police. But there was no answer.

"I turned around to go back down and another journalist had seen him. After that he disappeared again into the drains before he turned up in the field."

Episode two of The Hunt for Raoul Moat airs on ITV1 tonight and all episodes are available on ITVX.

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