Rothbury is a village desperately seeking assurance with police now believing fugitive murder suspect Raoul Moat poses a risk to civilians
ROTHBURY’S JUBILEE Hall in Northumbria normally hosts a few dozen people for whist or bingo. It is also home to the local dramatic society, but it was a different type of drama that drew hundreds to it last night.
Notices for the hurriedly called meeting with Northumbria’s acting chief constable Sue Sim and Chief Supt Mark Dennett were posted on shop windows around the village, 40 minutes north of Newcastle, during the course of the afternoon.
Children formed a backdrop behind Sim and Dennett. They sat quietly on stools as adults questioned the police’s handling of the hunt fugitive Raoul Moat, who is alleged to have killed one man and injured his ex-girlfriend and a policeman.
Rothbury has been at the centre of a storm for days, with helmeted armed police striding around the streets, and television satellite trucks taking up their posts outside shops as the search for Moat continued.
Fears were heightened yesterday after police said they believed Moat now poses a threat to civilians and not just to police, whom he had declared war in a handwritten, rambling letter early in the week.
Police refuse to say why they think the threat has changed, leaving many in homes and farms outside Rothbury frightened by “every sound in the middle of the night”, said one resident Stephen Clarke.
Despite radio reports that every car was being searched going into Rothbury, none were inspected last night.
Dennett must walk a fine line between safeguarding the public and not bringing the life of an entire community to a halt. Walkers and cyclists should not travel alone and stay out of the woods, he urged.
“If you do that, you are putting yourself at risk and others. Do what you have to do, and no more,” he said outside Rothbury’s police station, which open usually for just a few hours every day.
Questioned about the safety of people staying in unprotected and secluded local campsites, he offered apparently contradictory advice: “We have no information that there is a specific threat to anyone in Rothbury.”
Local feeling divides between irritation with the scale of the police operation and complaints that it is not large enough to trap a man believed to have been in their midst since Tuesday, if not before.
“Many of you have told me that you feel safer with the police here,” said Dennett to one man, who voiced a complaint last night about the police presence.
Moments later, Sim was called upon to assure others that the armed police – drawn from London, South Yorkshire and elsewhere – will stay until Moat is captured.
“I am not going to leave my community in a position where the job is half done. If we come to believe that he has moved elsewhere we will move there, but not until then,” she told one mother.
Some want a permanent guard on the village’s two schools until the alarm is over, though local butcher, Maurice Adamson said: “I personally think the schools are the safest place for [the children] at the minute. “But I have had a parent in the shop who has taken their children out.
Sim spent some of last night’s meeting defending the press who have descended on Rothbury, insisting in the face of local doubts that journalists have a role in the effort to create a dialogue with Moat.
“Our job is to help our community and that is what we are going to do,” said Sim, who despite the stresses of the week could still joke as she waved a finger at one local, saying: “Now, you can’t go out as a lynch mob.”
So far, four men are believed to have aided Moat. Two, Karl Ness and Qhuram Awan appeared before Newcastle magistrates yesterday on conspiracy to murder charges, where the crown prosecution service alleged that they had been “part and parcel” of Moat’s plans to kill policemen.
On Tuesday, Helen Renton, owner of the Elm Tree House cafe, served tea and coffees for hours to customers who had been locked in on police orders when the alarm was first raised.
“We are coping. We want to be free to move on, we just want to be sure that he is not around. People are a bit wary, but they are getting on with their normal lives,” she said yesterday.
Queen’s Head proprietor, the calm, plain-speaking Bill Brown said: “If I was a walker, or a fisherman, or a farmer I would be a little concerned. People here don’t get fazed, but there is a man in the hills threatening to shoot.”
