LIVE: Police stand-off England

Suspected gunman Raoul Moat recently left prison, believing that he had "lost everything".

Now he is the subject of a police manhunt.

On Thursday, the 37-year-old suspected gunman was released from Durham Prison, after being sentenced to 18 weeks for assault.

The father-of-three is being sought by armed officers in connection with the shooting of his former girlfriend, her new partner and a police officer.

Before the attacks started the suspected gunman's Facebook status was changed to read: "Just got out of jail, I've lost everything, my business, my property and to top it all off my lass has gone off with someone else.

"Watch and see what happens."


The only time I saw his dark side was in his letters - I remember he once talked about someone who was going to get done with a baseball bat

Described as 6ft 3in tall and of muscular build, relatives have painted a picture of a man who was prone to "eruptions of anger".

They also revealed that he used body-building steroids, which some research has linked to aggressive behaviour.

It has emerged Mr Moat previously had a girlfriend in the small market town of Rothbury, in Northumberland, where the manhunt for him is now centred.

During that time he is understood to have camped in the area and got to know it well.

The woman, Yvette Foreman, 35, spent weekends camping with him when the pair were both were in their 20s.

She said her ex-boyfriend had been a "lovely lad" and a practical joker who was "daft as a brush".
'Dark side'

But old letters he sent her provided a glimpse into the suspected gunman's volatile personality.

One of the letters, which is among a number taken from Miss Foreman by police, contained a violent fantasy in which he described plans to beat a rival.

"The only time I saw his dark side was in his letters. I remember he once talked about someone who was going to get done with a baseball bat," she said.

"He was saying how he and his mates were going to take a bat to somebody because they'd fallen out with somebody.

"I never really paid it any attention, until now."

Prior to his prison term, he worked as a doorman at a nightclub in Newcastle's Bigg Market, an area of the city famous for its nightlife.

Raised by his grandmother in Newcastle's West End, close to where his father and French-born mother lived, Mr Moat's life in recent years appears to have been punctuated by a number of encounters with police.

Northumbria Police have confirmed he had been arrested on 12 occasions and was charged with seven separate offences as a result.

At his trial for possession of an offensive weapon - a knuckle-duster police had found in the car he was driving - he told the court he would not have considered using it as a weapon.

"My hand barely fits through it," he said.

"It is an ornamental item. I wouldn't like to hit someone with this.

"I am a big lad and I would have thought if I punched someone with this it would take the skin off my knuckles right down to the bone."