To think it is a waste of money having a enquiry into the death of Raoul Moat?

[blametheparents]

What a waste of time and money.
He killed himself, end of.

YANBU.

I think it's a sad case and clearly he had an unhappy childhood, but what can we do? Incarcerate his crappy parents?

OP - your name says it all!

I had missed all of this. the bit about him being dead. didn't watch the news or have radio on yesterday, so didn't know.
goodness me. am saddened at how the media re relaying this, bad ex-g and bad police nonsense.
Shabba. So sorry to read your post.

yes there needs to be an enquiry to show the police were justified in the decisions they made. I hope it won't be critical.

Apparently they wanted the media to show him in as neutral a light as possible as he threatened to kill a member of the public for every 'inaccuracy' in the media

Yes, I guess it does.
It always comes down to 'blame the parents', doesn't it?

I thought they were having an enquiry over the whole incident, could any lessons be learnt about the whole incident,could he have been talked down at the end etc. Hpefully it will clear the Police and they can move on, as can the whole community.

There's always an inquest when a suspicious or violent death happens. Inquiries are common when someone dies in connection with a police operation. There is one in the case of Derrick Bird (the Cumbrian gunman) as well. There is no opportunity for a trial when the criminal is already dead so inquiries mean questions can be asked, everyone stands to learn something and that maybe responses another time around will be improved. Very important for everyone affected.

YABU

Most inquiries are fairly objective and won't start from a critical stance, i.e. 'to look into police mistakes' as it will be to look into the whole incident, and would include Moat's entire background as it's relevant.

I can't imagine that after a 6 hour stand off, the police would suddenly use the Tazer for no apparent reason.

Given all the anti-civil liberties measures that we have had to endure in recent years because the police need to catch terrorists, I am not impressed that it took so long to find him.

Also, he threatened harm to his gf on release from prison but the police did nothing. Yet two of his accomplices have been arrested for plotting. Why didn't they simply arrest Moat for plotting in the first place and avoid all this.

But how was the information communicated to the police? I don't know. Was it credible?

"But how was the information communicated to the police?"

Is that aimed at my 'he threatened harm to his gf on release from prison'? Erm, it was the prison authorities, with all their mental health assessment info, and is a standard procedure. The police apparently didn't take it seriously enough, which seems to be quite common when the police are told that a female is at risk from an ex.

But how many other losers were released from prison that day who had also made threats against people? The ploce just don't have the resources to act on what could just be idle threats, sadly.

Look, the point is that most of this information is confidential, so any information would be a leak. Don't understand how anyone can judge at the moment.

A leetle off topic, but still important I think - I don't think the intense 'breaking news' reporting helps. I found the level of coverage almost voyeuristic -"here's a distressed person from the village crying" "here's film of Moat lying on the ground with a gun at his head" (when it was a pretty sure bet it would end up with him shooting himself). If you are dealing with a person who is trying to justify/reinvent himself and to go out in a blaze of glory (in his head!), knowing that he is getting constant publicity and manipulating the media/police is surely still letting him continue on his power trip? I worry that it gives other unstable people the idea - in the case of some US school shootings, I understand that the murderers have left videos/letters saying they want to kill more people than previous cases. They know it's guaranteed publicity for their sad, twisted worldviews.

And as for the disturbing press view that its his mothers/ex GFs fault - GAH! No, it's his fault a man is dead, it's his fault he ended up where he did. Wheeling out people who knew him as a child and giving oxygen to the view that they could have saved him, changed him... - again is this really helping anyone?

God, another rant sorry - feel better know

better what we have than recent events in California no ? i get it, but its the sign of a civilised society

To be fair, I have heard that the prison service are issuing too many warnings, on a cover-your-backside basis, so real warnings get lost in the noise (calling 'wolf' too often).

And this thread neatly proves why an inquiry is very much needed. In the space of just a few minutes we've already got speculation, rumour, opinion, half-truths... Only when all the parties involved are able to give their version of events in the cold light of day will we arrive at something approaching the truth.

So pleased to read this thread, as I have been finding myself getting increasingly angry at all the news headlines. One had Gazza saying that the police killed his friend. No, they did not. Moat killed one and injured 2 others, he had 6 hours to surrender, a luxury he never gave his victims. Either SKY news or BBC 24 had a journalist in Newcastle saying he only had one conviction and 12 arrests which was low for a 37 year old. WTF.

I had the first though as you OP, initially but with reflexion, Boys2Mam is right.

The enquiry is to give answers to the family, it should not be about blaming anyone but about giving clear facts on what happened. Maybe he was not a good guy but his family still needs facts to come to term with.

How can they be an inquiry into his death - the whole of the UK was watching live on Skynews that he was stood on a riverbank with a shotgun to his head - what more do they need to know the man was a nutter.

He sounds very manipulative. If it's true about him saying that he would kill a member of the public for every inaccuracy, then he knew that they'd be unable to reveal any negative information about him in case he felt that was motivation enough to kill more. Which then means that it left a gap where people could turn him into a martyr not a killer.

I think we also have to take into account that he wont have missed the coverage on Derrick Bird, and so knew the chaos it would cause, and the fact that the police would have to go all out in order to avoid a repeat.

I am a police Insp working in the firearms world. I undrstand the need and rationale for the enquiry but I find the crap in the papers and news pretty horrifying. I think we all accept our role is particularly under scrutiny but it is a very difficult job. It is impossible to ever capture the circumstances of a dynamic incident in reterospect.

I think the force and officers did an outstanding job under intense pressure and the constant observation of the media.

I would rather he had been detained. It might have given the families of the victims an opportunity for closure.

As people have explained, it's standard practice to have an enquiry and it's useful because there may well be lessons that need to be learnt.

Let's hope this makes the police take domestic violence more seriously. The guy was a violent convicted criminal who had previously been arrested for violence, who had beaten women and children - they should have acted PDQ on the information about threats.

Edam - hopefully the enquiry will make some of this info clear. It is entirely possible the police took appropriate action ref the prison intell about a threat to his ex partner. However, that does not mean they could ever have anticipated or in any way prevented the very extreme and unique situation created by Moat.

I haven't seen very much news coverage on the TV, I've only read about it in the newspapers. How is the woman she shot?