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Moat's Brother: 'I Pleaded To Talk To Him'

The brother of gunman Raoul Moat appealed to police to be allowed to talk to him in the hours before he shot himself in Rothbury in Northumberland last July.

Moat went on the run after shooting and seriously injuring his former partner Sam Stobbart, murdering her boyfriend Chris Brown, and blinding PC David Rathband who was on the lookout for him.

Angus Moat told the inquest into his brother's death that he telephoned the police because he thought he might have prevented Moat from pulling the trigger at the end of a standoff with armed officers.

"I was completely appalled by his actions," he told the court in Newcastle, "But I didn't want him to die."

The 41-year-old tax inspector said he want to "talk Raoul down," but admitted he hadn't spoken to his brother for at least seven years and described their family as "very fragmented."

"Raoul thought everybody in his own family would be against him and I wanted to show him that was not the case," he told the jury of six women and five men.

"I thought if I could speak to him it could change the way he was feeling and the way he would act."

Police officers assessing potential helpers, or third party intermediaries, had told him by phone that his presence could put the police negotiators at risk.

Mr Moat acknowledged that the police had a better idea than he did of "all the emotional triggers" affecting his brother's behaviour.

Much of the evidence on the second day of the inquest has focused on who should have been involved in the negotiations to try to prevent Moat from shooting himself or others.

In a rambling recording recovered from Moat's abandoned tent on July 6 the killer spoke of a potential shootout and said of Ms Stobbart: "No one else is ever going to get through to me, you know that's the real situation."

Superintendent Jim Napier of Northumbria Police told the jury that Moat's words were "massively significant to how you approach a negotiation," but she was in hospital when they were negotiating with Moat.

He said he could not use Ms Stobbart to help, even if she had been well enough, when the man they were negotiating with had tried to kill her.

"The risks would far outweigh any perceived benefit," he said.