The Hunt for Raoul Moat: Questions put to ITV about controversial new drama

After being released from Durham Prison in July 2010, Moat, 37, shot and wounded ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart and killed her new partner Chris Brown.

He also shot police officer David Rathband in the face before eventually killing himself after a tense six-hour stand-off with Northumbria Police in Rothbury.

These events took place 13 years ago, and ITV has produced a drama based on the manhunt.

News of the programme has divided opinion online, with some suggesting it is too soon to be making ‘entertainment’ out of such a tragedy.

But writer Kevin Sampson, who was holidaying in Northumberland when the hunt for Moat unfolded, said the whole point of the show was to “make a change”.

He said: “We were up walking Hadrian’s Wall staying in Corbridge that weekend and it was Sunday afternoon – that was the first that I became aware of what had happened. Immediately there and then you could feel that sense of threat.

“With regards to ‘why now’, the idea really came during lockdown. There was an escalation in incidents of domestic violence and we’d been talking about ways of platforming issues like this.

“It was such a potent and unique case.”

The team behind the drama added the story would be told through the eyes of the victims, rather than by following Moat exclusively.

Kevin added: “The first thing I did was to reach out to Chris Brown’s family to get a sense of the attitude towards their life being portrayed on a prime time television drama. And, also, to get a sense of how they would prefer that story to be told.

“They were very, very supportive and the message that came from them was that they felt that Chris had been forgotten. Every time they heard about this as the Raoul Moat case, it pained them and it prolonged their suffering.”

Jake Lushinton, part of the production company, added: “Our aim is to shine a light upon a major piece of British history – the biggest manhut there ever was – and try to refocus people on what actually happened.

"Nobody could ever say that the way in which we put this programme together was to entertain. It’s there to inform. And what drama does, it informs with emotion with the ability to take you to places that any documentary can’t, and lets you invest in that story.”

When pressed if 13 years was enough time to have passed before making a drama about the killings, Jake added: “13 years is not the shortest period of time to tell a drama in retrospect, but of course it is in living memory for a lot of people who were affected by it, and it was a very traumatic incident.

“I think there’s a danger, again going back to what we know and what we remember, that if we do not tell the story within the lifetime of people who were there and who remember that this ‘legend’ of a man against the system who was outwitting the cops and you know who had rights somehow on his side – which many people believe and still believe – won’t really be challenged.”