Police officer recalls moment he was shot and blinded by one of Britain's most evil killers

In a harrowing audio clip, a police officer recalled the moment he was shot and blinded by one of Britain’s ‘most evil killers’.

Back in July 2010, a week-long manhunt was launched for Raoul Moat, just days after he was released from prison.

The 37-year-old shot and injured his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Stobbart, and shot dead her boyfriend Chris Brown in Gateshead. He then went on to shoot traffic officer PC David Rathband who was sitting in a marked patrol car.

A new Prime Video documentary, Raoul Moat: Inside the Mind of a Killer, explores the tragic and lasting consequences of the man’s anger and inner turmoil.

It includes some of Moat’s personal letters and voice recordings, including him basically waging a war with the police as he threatened to kill any officer who crossed his path.

Having lost his sight in both eyes as a result of the shooting, PC Rathband took his own life in 2012. A coroner ruled he had done so because he couldn’t cope with his disability and a breakdown in his marriage.

In the documentary, it is explained that the officer wasn’t warned about Moat who ‘just wanted to shoot a police officer’.

Audio from PC Rathband explains what happened as the killer approached his car: “I looked up, and I was looking at him he just pointed the gun forward, sort of towards the car window, and then the next thing I felt was my face just explode.

“It was the noise that I heard first, it was as if my head was inside a tin can with the biggest ever firework that you could ever possibly imagine getting and then putting your head inside and shutting the lid.

“It was just absolutely unbearable. I was thrown into the footwell with the force of the blast, and then when I got back up to try and press the radio, whilst doing that I covered my face for some reason with my left arm.”

Moat then shot the officer again in the arm, and luckily he still managed to pass a message on to control.

“And then seconds or minutes later I actually heard sirens coming as I’d managed to open the driver’s door and put my foot in it, so the interior lights stayed on.”

The killer then sent a further message to police, as played in the doc, saying he was going ‘to destroy a few lives’ and that he had ‘no life left’ because of them.

“I’m absolutely not gonna stop. You’re gonna have to kill me,” Moat said.

He then went on a run for the week before a six-hour stand-off with police in a remote Northumberland village.

Moat then turned the gun on himself and died by suicide on 10 July.

Raoul Moat: Inside the Mind of a Killer is available on Prime Video UK & IE from 12 October