Moat asked children’s social workers for psychiatric help

Gunman Raoul Moat asked children’s social workers for pscyhiatric help, but then failed to attend appointments, in the months before he killed a man and shot his ex-girlfriend and a policeman.

It has emerged that Moat made recordings of interviews he had with social workers who were assessing his ability to look after his two children. The tapes were given to ITV news by a friend of Moat’s.

Newcastle City Council confirmed it had had extensive contact with Moat over a number of years in relation to the safety and wellbeing of his two children.

The children are currently the subject of care proceedings. However, a spokesman for the council said as part of the care application Moat agreed to a psychological and psychiatric assessment because of his aggressive behaviour.

“The psychologist report is a confidential court document. A psychiatric report was not produced as Mr Moat failed to attend agreed appointments. Throughout his contact with the council Mr Moat has displayed aggression towards council staff on a number of occasions across a range of services.”

The spokesman said it was aware Mr Moat had recorded some of the meetings he had had with social workers.

In one recording made by Moat in August 2009 of a meeting, attended by a social worker, the gunman said: “I would like to have a psychiatrist, psychologist, have a word with me regularly, on a regular basis, to see if there’s somewhere underlying like where I have problem that I haven’t seen.

“Why don’t we just have a psychiatrist sit me down and say ‘Right OK, I want to see you regularly, then we can move towards where your areas of fault are, we can enhance on these areas you know, and work with us’.

“If I’m at fault myself in any way, I’m open to all kinds of suggestions, but I refuse to spend the rest of my time fighting with social services.”

In another of the taped conversations Moat said: “I’m quite emotionally unstable you know, I get myself over-the-top happy sometimes. And I have my bad days, you know.

“The more you block things out, the more numb you become in the heart you know. You get to a point where happiness to you is just like, you know, neither here nor there.”

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