Cameron condemns sympathy for ‘callous murderer’ Moat

There should be no public sympathy for gunman Raoul Moat, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday, describing him as a “callous murderer”.

Mr Cameron told the Commons that any sympathy should be reserved for Moat’s victims.

“It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story,” he told MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions.

“I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man.

“There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community.

“There should be no sympathy for him.”

Mr Cameron spoke out as it emerged that PC David Rathband, the officer shot in the face by the former nightclub doorman, has been left blind.

The Prime Minister was urged by Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris to contact Face-book to ask them to take down the webpage of the RIP Raoul Moat group, which he said carried a “whole host of anti-police statements”.

Mr Cameron said that he was making a “very good point”.

Later, his official spokesman indicated that a 10 Downing Street official was likely to contact Facebook to highlight the Prime Minister’s concerns with the company.

Online tributes to Moat have been posted on the webpages while around 50 bouquets have been left outside his former home in Fenham, Newcastle upon Tyne.

And flowers and cards have transformed the riverside in Roth-bury, Northumberland, where Moat shot himself in the early hours of Saturday morning, into a shrine.

The tributes have already been condemned by Britain’s most senior police officer, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, as “extraordinarily disappointing”.

And today Kelly Stobbart, the half-sister of Moat’s ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, echoed the Prime Minister’s comments.

“He’s far from a legend,” she told BBC Look North.

“How would these people think if it was a member of their family that he done it to?

“They wouldn’t like it ... they’d be calling him all the names.

“How can someone who does that to an innocent person be a legend? It’s just disgusting.“

Moat went on the run after killing his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart’s new lover Chris Brown, 29, and seriously injuring her.

The following day he blasted PC Rathband with a shotgun, blinding him.

The officer recalled the moment he was shot through the window of his marked car at a roundabout in East Denton, Newcastle.

The 42-year-old said: “I looked into his eyes and I saw nothing - no emotion.

“Then I felt the pain full-on in my face. I knew my right eye socket had just exploded and my eye had gone,” he told The Sun.

Bleeding heavily, the officer “played dead”, fearing that Moat was still close by.

“I was trying to not make a noise even though there was blood everywhere in my nose and throat,” he said.

But he managed to whisper into his radio for help as he lay slumped in the footwell.

He said he was convinced he was going to die as he was rushed to hospital by ambulance.

Earlier today police arrested a further three men on suspicion of assisting an offender.

The men, aged 27, 34 and 45, were arrested at two addresses in Newcastle and one in Wallsend.

A total of 13 arrests have now been made in relation to the Moat inquiry.

Last Tuesday, it emerged police had fired shotgun-mounted XRep Tasers at Moat, which were not approved for use by the Home Office.

The IPCC, which is investigating Northumbria Police’s handling of the investigation, made an appeal yesterday to any witnesses to Moat’s final hours on Friday night in Rothbury to get in touch.