'I played dead as Raoul Moat tried to execute me'

THE police officer who was blasted twice with a shotgun by Raoul Moat has told how he played dead and then summoned the strength to raise the alarm despite suffering devastating injuries.

Constable David Rathband, 43, recalled being shot as he sat in his police car, and yesterday told Newcastle Crown Court he knew exactly who it was behind the barrel of the gun.

The father-of-two, wearing his police uniform for the first time in public since he was almost killed last July, told the jury: "I realised that it was Raoul Moat who had approached the car and I can remember saying to myself 'Oh f*** - it's him'."

Moat was wanted for shooting his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart, 22, and killing her new boyfriend Chris Brown the night before.

PC Rathband was on the look-out for Moat, and had already come across him in March over an uninsured vehicle.

Moat, 37, sneaked up on the officer who was parked on a roundabout at the junction of the A1 and A69 west of Newcastle. He shot him once between the eyes, then again in the shoulder as the officer moved to raise the alarm.

• Raoul Moat's chilling threat to police: I'm not on the run, I'm coming to get you

The first shot was so loud inside the car that it felt like the noise was ripping his face, he told the court. He felt a sharp pain between his eyes and above the bridge of his nose.

"I knew I had been hit in the face and I knew my right eye had gone," he said.

The second blast hit him on the left shoulder as he went to activate a mayday signal inside the car.

PC Rathband said: "As I lay in the car, I realised I just had to lie there and literally play dead because it was quite clear Moat wanted me dead."

PC Rathband believed Moat was trying to "execute" him with the second shot.

"He shot me in the middle of my eyes and the second shot was to finish me off," he told the jury. "So I tried to stop myself breathing because I was making lots of rasping noises because of the amount of blood that was spraying out and that was going down my throat. It felt like a lifetime but in reality it was probably a few seconds."

PC Rathband faltered just once during his evidence, when recalling the blast that robbed him of his sight, but carried on without needing a break, saying: "I'm OK." Scars from the shotgun pellets are still visible on his face.

Bleeding heavily after the second shot, he still managed to raise the alarm using a microphone on the gear stick of his patrol car.

PC Rathband was giving evidence in the trial of two men accused of helping the gunman during his bloody rampage.

Karl Ness, 26, and Qhuram Awan, 23, deny plotting to murder, attempted murder, robbery and having a gun. Ness also denies the murder of karate instructor Mr Brown, 29.

PC Rathband said that after raising the alarm, he knew his car could be located via GPS.

He said: "I was lying there bleeding quite heavily. It all went very quiet and very dark and I had a moment when my children came into view."

He remembered hearing sirens coming towards him, telling the jury: "I was quite elated someone was coming."

The trial was due to continue today.