Ex-lover tells of watching Moat shoot boyfriend

Samantha Stobbart, 22, was left fighting for her life after Moat blasted her through the glass window of a friend’s home in Birtley, Gateshead.

The former doorman, 37, had just shot her karate instructor boyfriend Chris Brown twice outside the house before “calmly executing” him with a final shot to the head, a court was told.

Miss Stobbart was giving evidence yesterday at the trial of two men alleged to have been the willing accomplices of Moat during his rampage last July, when he shot dead 29-year-old Mr Brown, injured Miss Stobbart and blinded off-duty police officer Pc David Rathband.

Karl Ness and Qhuram Awan deny a string of charges relating to Moat’s crimes, before he killed himself a week after going on the run during a stand-off with police in Rothbury, Northumberland.

Miss Stobbart, still bearing a livid scar on her forearm from the shotgun wound inflicted upon her, wept as she told a jury at Newcastle Crown Court how Moat had lain in wait as she walked with Mr Brown near her home in Birtley on July 3 last year.

She said: “I just seen Raoul jump up. I think he came from the window. He just appeared.”

Prosecutor Robert Smith QC asked whether Moat had anything in his hands.

She whispered: “A gun. A gun. I did not see the gun at first. Then I seen him load it.”

When Mr Smith asked: “Did it happen quickly?” she nodded silently. “Chris walked in front of me,” she said.

Moat then raised the sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun and shot Mr Brown in the chest.

She said: “Chris went down to the grass and I followed him. I remember Raoul was shouting, I don’t know what. He pointed the gun at my legs and I ran into the house.”

Her mother fled upstairs with Miss Stobbart’s daughter as her friends hid.

Miss Stobbart said: “I could not see anybody. I was panicking because my daughter was upstairs and I was running about the house looking for the keys.

“I heard two shots. When I looked out the window it was done.

“I didn’t see Raoul come towards the house, I was concentrating on Chris.

“I just heard shouting, and before I knew it I got shot.”

Moat had blasted her through the glass of a downstairs window.

The shotgun round pierced her arm then hit her liver, stomach and pancreas, causing life-threatening injuries.

She said: “I did not fall to the ground straight away. It took about 20 seconds – then I just collapsed. Blood was pumping from my arm and from my chest.

“I was dragged through to the kitchen and then I was waiting forever for the ambulance to come.”

Surgeons at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Gateshead battled for eight hours to save her life.

The trial continues.