Raoul Moat surrounded by armed police

FUGITIVE Raoul Moat is tonight in a stand-off with armed police.

• Moat as seen recently in CCTV footage. Picture: PA

Moat, 37, was surrounded by at least 10 snipers in the riverside area of Rothbury, in Northumberland, amid eyewitness accounts that Britain's most wanted man was holding a gun to his neck.

Dozens more armed police were on stand-by as the manhunt appeared to be reaching its climax.

Officers at the scene confirmed they had tracked down the former nightclub doorman and a process of negotiation was under way.

In Rothbury town centre police were seen to speed away in patrol cars as Chief Superintendent Mark Dennett of Northumbria Police told locals to stay indoors for their "own safety".

Marksmen were seen in the riverside area of the town amid rumours the 37-year-old could be in the area.

Locals said the police activity was centring on allotments near the town centre where a man fitting Moat's description was spotted last night.

As armed police swamped the area an ambulance arrived and made its way to the river side.

There was no one on the streets apart from police officers standing guard on the eastern approach road to Rothbury.

A security cordon of officers and vans stopped traffic entering the town from the east side while five police vans in convoy drove past with sirens blaring.

Juliette Ballantyne, from Whitton View, said she had seen snipers down by the river.

Mrs Ballantyne, who lives to the east of Rothbury town centre, said: "I am nervous. My mother in law lives nearby. I hope she's okay."

Two police vehicles were involved in a collision as they rushed to the riverside.

Judith Ellis told the BBC the rush to get to the scene was "mayhem": "I am shaken up. I saw the snipers and they were trained on something to the left."

The dramatic scenes in the small Northumberland town followed the news that detectives were pursuing "valuable" new leads a week into the investigation after recovering three mobile phones used by Moat during his time on the run.

Experts said the devices could contain a goldmine of information about the former nightclub doorman, including details about his calls, texts, contacts, and even his former location.

The first of the three handsets was found in Birtley in the early hours of Saturday – at the scene where Moat's ex-lover Samantha Stobbart, 22, was shot and her new boyfriend, Chris Brown, 29, killed.

A second phone, used to make the two 999 calls to police before and after 42-year-old Pc David Rathband was shot early on Sunday, has also been recovered – but police would not say from where or when.

The third was spotted by a member of the public in the Rothbury area.

Police said it had not been used by the gunman since the two alleged hostages, Karl Ness and Qhuram Awan, were found on Tuesday. Both have since appeared in court charged with conspiracy to murder.

Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson, who is spearheading one of the biggest manhunts in living memory, said the past 24 hours had provided "some very positive developments".

Police also investigated a possible sighting of Moat walking through the centre of Rothbury.

The witness report came hours after Temporary Chief Constable Sue Sim told a packed public meeting that Moat was unlikely to be "walking down the street with a gun".