Raoul Moat no psycho, his brother insists

Gunman Raoul Moat was "no psycho", his brother has insisted.

Angus Moat said he was prevented by police from reaching his brother Raoul, who was cornered by armed officers on a riverbank in Rothbury, Northumberland.

He said he was convinced he could have talked the former nightclub doorman into laying down his weapon. Instead he watched live on television as Moat, 37, shot himself dead following a tense six hour stand off with armed police.

The tax officer, who has not seen his brother "for a number of years", said he would blame himself for not doing more to be by his brother's side during his final hours.

But he questioned the use of Tasers during the tense negotiations and said he thought the stun gun could have triggered Moat to shoot himself in the head.

Mr Moat, 39, said: "Raoul has been made out to be some kind of Terminator, Rambo character, a psycho, and it could not be more untrue. That is not the brother I knew.

"He came from a fairly dysfunctional background with very little maternal affection there; perhaps that's the reason why he was so desperate to form a stable family unit himself in adult life."

"What he did was totally wrong, totally monstrous and I am not trying to defend or excuse it. But this was not a case of some guy just deciding to be a psycho gun nut because that is not what my brother was."

He said the brothers were close until their early 20's, when they drifted apart. They had not seen each other at all for seven years before Raoul became Britain's most wanted for shooting his ex-girlfriend Sam Stobbart, killing her new boyfriend Chris Brown and seriously injuring Pc David Rathband last weekend.