TV survival expert Mears reveals real-life role in hunt for gunman

The bush tracker and TV presenter joined a Tornado fighter jet and scores of armed police officers in the £1m-plus search for the former doorman. They were called in after Moat and his accomplices went to ground in woodland surrounding Rothbury, Northumberland, in July 2010.

Mears, 49, contacted a police search adviser he had met at a lecture years earlier to offer his skills and after police discovered an abandoned campsite on the outskirts of Rothbury, he was called in to help. In an interview with the Gloucestershire Echo, the bushcraft expert said that at one point he was within 20ft of the gunman after eight hours of moving stealthily through dense forest.

He described the scene when he arrived in Rothbury as like something “out of a Hollywood film set” with bright lights, police snipers, helicopters circling overhead and the Tornado making reconnaissance sorties. “It was all a bit surreal,” he told the newspaper.

Mears, who was speaking ahead of the publication of his autobiography later this month, added: “It was a real-life hunt; within my skill set but outside of my comfort zone.”

Moat went on the run after killing Chris Brown, 29, who had started a relationship with his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart then blinding Pc David Rathband.

He eventually shot himself after a stand-off with police.