Inquest: police used tasers on gunman Moat
Updated on 13 July 2010
An inquest into the death of gumnan Raoul Moat, heard he was shot by two officers with taser guns before he took his own life.
The Independent Police Complaints Authority confirmed that X-rep Tasers fired from shotguns were used, a weapon that is still undergoing testing.
But Channel 4 News has learnt that ACPO did not know Northumbria had those weapons.
Police deployed the weapons in an attempt to stop Moat killing himself, the hearing was told.
It is not clear whether the Tasers were fired before or after Moat turned his gun on himself, Independent Police Complaints authority senior investigator Steve Reynolds told the hearing in Newcastle.
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"At 1.12am Mr Moat's shotgun discharged, resulting in him receiving fatal injuries," Mr Reynolds said.
"At some point around the time of the fatal shot two West Yorkshire firearms officers armed with Tasers discharged their weapons at Mr Moat.
"This was understood to have been in an effort to prevent Mr Moat taking his own life.
"At this stage the precise sequence of events regarding the discharge of Taser has not been established and is under investigation."
Home affairs correspondent Andy Davies says:
At around the time of Raoul Moat's apparent suicide, two firearms officers fired two taser guns at him. Now these weren't the usual handheld taser guns - they were the newer, longer-range, high impact X-rep taser shotguns.
Now, Northumbria police will be under a huge amount of pressure to explain how they acquired these guns because they've never been used before in the UK. They have yet to be fully evaluated and approved by the Home Office and it's my understanding that remarkably the Association of Chief Police Officers, which sets the guidance on the use of these tasers, had no idea that a UK police force had access to them.
Northumbria may have the argument that they can use their discretion in some circumstances to deploy these unapproved devices, but they will be under a great amount of pressure to explain how they go them and why they used them.
I should stress that this was an exceptional case, and the IPCC may yet conclude that Northumbria police used the best options available to them.
But we've learnt today that the two firearms officers who fired at Mr Moat were from West Yorkshire police. Now, I've been told that West Yorkshire police do not have these X-rep taser shotguns, so that indicates that they must have got them from Northumbria police, and that would have been - for the first time - only last week.
If that is true, then these firearms officers would barely have had any time to be trained in or accredited in the use of a weapon which has yet to be fully approved or evaluated by the Home Office. So all of this will be scrutinised by the IPCC.
As the inquest opened three men were arrested for allegedly assisting the fugitive. The men were held during raids in Newcastle and Gateshead.
A police spokesman said: "Three men have been arrested this morning in connection with assisting an offender during the search for Raoul Moat.
"The men were arrested from two addresses in Gateshead and one in Newcastle.
"At this stage the investigation is still on-going and further arrests can't be ruled out."
These arrests bring the total to 10 made so far in the investigation, police confirmed.
